Re: file selector re-visited

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Michael L Torrie <torriem cs byu edu> writes:

> Just a quick note and a question or too.  First off, awhile I hacked the
> file selector for gtk 1.2.8 to add some features and change it's look.
> Now apparently XMMS 1.2.5 breaks with this custom widget design because it
> reaches into the file selector object structure and accesses an internal
> widget directory.  This widget (formerly an input box) is now a drop-down
> box, so things core dump.
> 
> Is it not improper for XMMS to be working in this manner?  They are
> expecting the internals of the file selector to be a certain way.  Should
> not they be treating the file selector like a black box, as much as is
> possible, and sticking to the APIs?  What is the official recommendation
> on this messing with internal widgets directly?  Is the file selector
> design so bad that this is required to make it useful to XMMS?

No its not improper -- its long-established tradition for programs
like the GIMP to do it. This is the main reason why we didn't consider
even small rearrangements of the file selector for GTK+-2.0.  Even a
small rearrangement is an API change, and breaking the API without
fixing all the major issues was not considered a good thing.

The file selector design is not good, but fixing it requires:

 UI testing
 API design
 Consideration of issues like integration with gnome-vfs
 A complete rewrite from scratch (The current code is unmaintainable)

And thus was decided to be a 2.2 issue not a 2.0 issue.

Regards,
                                        Owen