genesis-devs team mailing list archive

[Frederik Elwert <frederik.elwert@xxxxxx>]

Hi!

Am Sonntag, den 22.11.2009, 23:26 +0100 schrieb David Castellanos: 
> About the sync drop-down, you really convinced me with your arguments
> about the buttons vs radio thing and I've pushed to my bzr branch
> another version with your option. It's still not functional, it's only
> a elaborated mockup, but when I have time I'll complete it. But I've
> been thinking about it this week, and I think the best we can do with
> the drop-down menu is to delete it from the toolbar and keep the plain
> 'two-way sync' button. If a user want to perform a special sync, the
> option is still available in the menubar, under ''Acount > Synchronize
> > XXXX". I think this way is simpler than both previous proposals...
> what do you think about it?

I think you’re perfectly right. This should be used only in rare
situations, and having it in the menu is perfectly sufficient. Plus,
having it in the account menu makes it perfectly clear that it only
affects that specific account.

> I've pushed the support for toggling on/off the automatic
> synchronization for an account from the 'Account Management' screen,
> I've implemented it the way you suggested (saving the account names in
> the configuration file). It still needs some love, but it's currently
> functional. I've encountered some problems:
> - I've added a new column with a toggle button which control the
> automatic synchronization status for the account. But I don't know
> what name to give it... for example "Synchronize automatically" is too
> long... and the checkbox looks weird with such big space. For now I've
> leave it without title... Can you think a better column title, or
> should we left it blank? Mmm, "auto sync" is weird too :-S

I think it should be save to leave the title blank.

But I got one question concerning the effect of that checkbox: Does this
only affect automated syncs? Or does it also affect manual syncs using
the status icon?

I currently had this behaviour in mind:

      * Clicking the status icon syncs all active (i.e., checkbox
        checked) accounts. 
      * Automated syncs sync all active accounts. 
      * Sync button in the account manager only syncs the selected
        account in the account list.

But I’m not sure if this really is the best way to go. I might also be
worth thinking if one should be able to configure automatic sync
(intervals etc.) separately for each account. Then the checkbutton in
the account manager would only affect the manual syncs via status icon.

What do you think?

> - I've added a new configuration key, called 'autosync_servers', which
> store a list of accounts names. The problem is that I've been forced
> to violate the encapsulation of GenesisConfig class, calling
> 'config.write()' directly from ManageAccountsWindow class, because
> when adding/removing elements from the list the method __setitem__
> from GenesisConfig isn't called.... maybe I've not explained it too
> well (my English isn't good enough to explain that properly). What can
> we do, should we refactor GenesisConfig? There are some remaining
> glitches, but I'll work on them shortly.

GenesisConfig is sort of hackish, I agree. My idea was to access the
autostart settings like all other configuration properties, but that
turned out a bit tricky. Maybe that’s all not worth the trouble, and we
completely dump GenesisConfig. We could the go with a raw config object
and move the autostart methods/property to the Genesis main class.

By the way, if it is possible, I’d like to move away from configobj and
use ConfigParser. configobj is a great module, but it adds extra
dependencies that might be avoidable. Since we won’t have to parse the
commandline output once we moved to the D-Bus API, ConfigParser might be
sufficient for that little config file.

> For now I do not remember any more troubles, but there was more for
> sure. When I recall them, I'll write to the list again.

I now it’s not completely fair to make you look into my coding problems
rather than caring about your work. But if you manage to have a look at
the icon theme issue I wrote about in my last mail, I’d be very glad. I
just can’t figure out my mistake.

Cheers,
Frederik