gnome15-team team mailing list archive

[Nuno Araujo <nuno.araujo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Brett

Below is a proposal to change the structure of the Gnome15 source tree
that could (I think) simplify it's management.
As you will see, this new structure goes "against" my previous proposals
that had a tendency towards a splitting of the source tree.

Would you be kind enough to read it (I know it's a bit long) and tell me
what you think.

If you agree with the proposal, I will make a branch to implement this
changes. Given the time that I have available, we could target a merge
of this branch for the Gnome15 0.8 release.

====== Rationale ======
Currently the Gnome15 source tree is split among several projects:
.
├── g19d
├── gnome15
├── gnome15-gnome-plugins
├── gnome15-iconpack
├── gnome15-impulse15
├── gnome15-indicator
├── gnome15-kde-plugins
├── gnome15-panel-applet
├── gnome15-sandbox-plugins
├── gnome15-systemtray
├── gnome15-ubuntu
├── gnome15-ubuntu-plugins
├── lgsetled
├── pylibg19
└── site

Many of these projects are deeply related with each other and the only
advantage of this structure seems to be the fact that they make
packagers life easier.

By using some of the "GNU Build System" features (hereafter GBS), we can
keep this advantage and simplify the maintainers work.

====== Implementation ======
- Move the applet, indicator and system-tray to the gnome15 source tree.
- Move all the icons to the gnome15 source tree.
- Move *all* the plugins to a new gnome15-plugins project. This include
the sandbox-plugins.

By default, all the gnome15 components would be built and installed if
their build dependencies are available.
User could change this behavior by passing one or more "--disable"
arguments to configure.
Affected components by these arguments would be:
- applet
- app-indicator
- system-tray

By default, all the plugins would be installed even if the user doesn't
have the required runtime dependencies installed.
Exceptions to this rule are:
- The "sandbox" plugins that would be built and installed only if a
"--enable-sandbox-plugins" argument is passed to configure.
- All the plugins that need the presence of some "native" libraries to
be built (Currently the impulse15 plugin). These plugins are only built
if the library is present on the computer doing the build.

User could change this behavior by passing one or more "--disable"
arguments to configure (one argument available by plugin?).

Making the plugins became a "root level" project would allow to release
new versions without having to release a new version of the "core"
packages.

Additionally to the changes that would be necessary to the source code
tree structure and the GBS support files (configure.ac and makefile.am),
some changes to the application code would be required:
- Each plugin would have a new method "is_usable" that should return
True if the plugin can be enabled.
This method would check among other things that the runtime dependencies
to enable the plugin are satisfied.
- In the "Plugins" tab of g15-config unusable plugins would be grayed
out.
- Somewhere in the g15-config UI we could allow the user enable the
"notification" system and automatically select the "best" one to use
(app-indicator, notification area...). From what I remember from when I
used Ubuntu, this is already the case with applications like Evolution
and Empathy.
User could always disable the "notification" and manually add the applet
to the panel.

Finally we would have this structure:
.
├── g19d
├── gnome15
│   └── src
│       ├── gnome
│       │   ├── applications
│       │   ├── autostart
│       │   └── dbus
│       ├── main
│       │   ├── python
│       │   │   ├── applet
│       │   │   ├── gnome15
│       │   │   │   └── drivers
│       │   │   ├── indicator
│       │   │   └── systemtray
│       │   └── resources
│       │       ├── glade
│       │       ├── icons
│       │       │   ├── hicolor
│       │       │   ├── AwOken
│       │       │   ├── elementary
│       │       │   ├── HighContrastLargePrintInverse
│       │       │   ├── ubuntu-mono-dark
│       │       │   └── ubuntu-mono-light
│       │       └── images
│       ├── man
│       ├── scripts
│       ├── themes
│       ├── udev
│       └── xcf
├── gnome15-plugins
│   └── src
│       ├── background
│       ├── backlight
│       ├── browser
│       ├── cal
│       ├── cairo-clock
│       ├── clock
│       ├── fx
│       ├── g15daemon-server
│       ├── impulse15
│       ├── indicator-me
│       ├── indicator-messages
│       ├── lcdbiff
│       ├── macro-recorder
│       ├── macros
│       ├── menu
│       ├── mpris
│       ├── nm
│       ├── notify-lcd
│       ├── notify-lcd2
│       ├── panel
│       ├── ppastats
│       ├── processes
│       ├── rss
│       ├── screensaver
│       ├── stopwatch
│       ├── sysmon
│       ├── ts3
│       ├── videoplayer
│       ├── volume
│       ├── webcam
│       ├── webkitbrowser
│       ├── weather
│       └── window-thumbnail
├── lgsetled
├── pylibg19
└── site


====== Packaging ======
With this new structure, packagers could then choose a packaging
strategy that respects their distribution packaging policies.

===== gnome15 =====
- Package gnome15 in a single package and have some optional
dependencies that the user can choose to install;
- Or split gnome15 in several packages (core, app-indicator, applet,
system-tray) and allow the user to install each of them individually.

E.g. : For Ubuntu, gnome15 would be built with the app-indicator and
system-tray support enabled and installed by default, but applet could
be packaged separately.
In Arch Linux case, the default notification system installed would be
the system-tray, and users could manually install the app-indicator.
In both cases, since the g15-config GUI would allow user to disable the
"notification" system, final user could always disable it and add the
applet to the panel.

===== gnome15-plugins =====
- Have a single package for all the gnome15-plugins and specify
"optional" dependencies that the user can choose to install if they want
a full featured gnome15-plugins (Recommended);
- Or package each plugin independently and maybe create some
meta-packages that install related plugins together.

===== lgsetled =====
No changes.

===== pylibg19 =====
No changes.

===== g19d =====
No changes.

Regards

-- 
Nuno Araujo <nuno.araujo@xxxxxxxxxxx>