Re: GNOME Style Guide, was: Re: Uniformity?

["Andrew S. Townley" <atownley informix com>]

Hello,

Actually, I think another way to try and make something useful happen  
without (possibly) devolving into another flame war is to kind of establish  
some ground rules.  If the people involved didn't follow the ground rules, I  
don't know what recourse there would be, but at least maybe something like:

	* if you flame someone for expressing an opinion, you will be
	  filtered
	* realize that everyone has a right to their opinion and you can
	  either agree, disagree or ignore it, but we ARE trying to do
	  something more constructive than host a flame war.
	
Also, in order to get something resolved, instead of trying to tackle the  
whole problem of the style guide at once, break it down into more manageable  
chunks and associate a "target date of completion" to them.  Now, I realize  
that we're talking about a vast variety of different schedules to coordinate,  
but if things are split up into smaller pieces, maybe something useful will  
be done in a more timely fashion.

I think that the existing style guide is a good start, but I think that we  
may want to add some additional information for background which does more to  
describe the concepts and ideas we want to see GNOME and GNOME applications  
exhibit and then talk about the actual "nuts and bolts" implementation  
details of each interface component.  After that, maybe the special features  
that will define GNOME like the integrated CORBA and the Baboon architecture  
should be discussed.  Among these could also be information about the  
different application styles (SDI/MDI/Dialog) and how each one should be  
implemented or at least behave.  How the integration with the help system  
should be accomplished, and a discussion on how the user applications and  
settings for both the system and the user environment are stored, organized  
and modified.

These are just opinions about some other things which I haven't seen in the  
style guide as yet.  I think the most important ones to define first are the  
overriding GNOME-isms which will define the environment.  I know that this  
information is spread around all over the place and the FAQ does a pretty  
good job of touching on it, but I think that a high-level discussion about  
what is GNOME, how is it different from other environments and what can a  
user expect from GNOME and GNOME-compliant applications independent of things  
like layout and text capitalization would have a good home in the style  
guide.  Also, this guide should be heavily illustrated, as much as possible,  
to allow someone to get the "feel" of GNOME without necessarily  
building/compiling/installing the environment.

This turned out to be a bit longer than I had intended, but I am interested  
in helping out as well.  I'm also open to suggestions as to how to break  
things down into smaller, more easily-attainable chunks.  I'm also  
cross-sending this to the gnome-gui list (so my apologies for anyone who gets  
it twice) because I agree with Nils that it kinda belongs there as well.

ast
>
>
>Begin forwarded message:
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>Resent-Date: 29 Oct 1998 17:01:37 -0000
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>Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 17:50:01 +0100 (CET)
>From: Nils Philippsen <nils@rhlx01.rz.fht-esslingen.de>
>X-Sender: nils@rhpc60.rz.fht-esslingen.de
>To: John R Sheets <dusk@smsi-roman.com>
>cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
>Subject: GNOME Style Guide, was: Re: Uniformity?
>In-Reply-To: <36375054.CE12F14@smsi-roman.com>
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>Hi,
>
>On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, John R Sheets wrote:
>
>> Nils Philippsen wrote:
>>
>[snip]
>> The unfortunate side effect is that no work is being done on it.  I think  
it would
>> be great if you started working on it.  The gui-list is archived, so if  
you don't
>> mind weeding through the 100+ messages per day that the list peaked at (only
>> toward the end), you'll find a lot of very good ideas.  Hint: look for  
the shorter
>> threads with meaningful titles.  (c;
>
>Are there chances to get this as a tarred archive or similar, so I can carry
>it home on my small 400Meg HD instead of downloading message after message and
>making German Telekom richer as they deserve?
>
>>
>> Have you looked over Federico's UI Guidelines template in
>> /gnome-libs/devel-docs/ui-guide yet?
>
>Oh, lottsa SGML and no working (DocBook) sgmltools here -- I'll take it home
>and examine what's done already there.
>
>>
>> If you need a little help deciphering some of the ideas that passed  
through there,
>> or finding a good place to start, let me know.
>
>If there's a sensible way to get the mailing list archives home, I'm in for
>it. Be sure to hear from me, then. After I (hopefully with success) waded
>through the gnome-gui-list I'll post an excerpt of opinions and what's
>(apparently) already has been decided to the list for further discussion.
>Maybe this should go to the gnome-gui-list, just another list I have to
>subscribe then *sigh*. Would it be feasible to ask people to mail remarks
>to me personally to keep flammage down? I could refine excerpts of these and
>post them to the list (for further discussion? -- oh sh*t the cat just bit in
>its tail, ...). I see some problem to make decisions and not
>
>a) flame people to ashes
>b) suffer from the "town council" symptoms mentioned by Alan Cox in this
>   special article on slashdot
>c) do endless (fruitless) discussions beforehands
>
>To do decisions, two schemes come to (my) mind: Either discussion, then let
>the "core developers" (Miguel, Federico, George, ... apologies to those I
>forgot) make the final decision. The other way would be a Usenet like Request
>for Discussion, Call for Votes scheme (a problem would be to get a person to
>collect the votes who is impartial). Any other ideas to this?
>
>Nils
>
>PS: Disclaimer: If I said decision, I meant those who have not been done so
>far, of course. I can imagine better ways to produce work than repeating
>already done decisionmaking senselessly (did that sentence make sense?).
>--
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Nils Philippsen                  @college: nils@fht-esslingen.de
>Vogelsangstrasse 115             @home:    nils@wombat.dialup.fht-esslingen.de
>D 70197 Stuttgart                phone:    +49-711-6599405
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Maybe I should patent stupidity so every lawyer will owe me BIG !!
>(mpare/at/cadvision/dot/com)
>
>
>
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