[APOC] APOC at FreeDesktop :)

[Peter K Anderson]

Hey Alberto

On Fri, 2008-02-01 at 14:23 +0000, Alberto Ruiz wrote:
> Would be possible to get some information (and photos even!)  of your 
> Sun Rays and APOC deployment so we can post that on the website? I think 
> it would be pretty valuable to explain real life scenarios on the site 
> so people can get a better picture of what kind of problems it solves.

Information and even a photo or two may be possible ...I'll see what I
can do when I visit one of our sites in the next week or so.

> > Just one question (for now) ...is the SUNWapleg code scheduled to be
> > made open as well?  I was particularly disappointed not to see the code
> > for /opt/SUNWapleg/lib/desktopApps as this is an area that I believe
> > needs more work and I was hoping to contribute here first.
> >   
> I'm afraid there are no plans to opensource that component.
> Can you explain what's your particular interest about it?

The 'Desktop Definition Adapter' (DDA - i.e. SUNWapleg et al) isn't
really as configurable as our customers would like.  In particular, our
customers have asked for the ability to:

        * Assign additional launchers to existing sub-menus without
        clobbering existing launchers.
        
        * Create additional launchers in the root-menu.
        
        * Assign image/icon to APOC-created sub-menus.
        
I'd certainly appreciate it if anyone could advise whether any of the
above is possible using latest version of the product.

Just so I'm not misunderstood, the existing DDA functionality is a
*great* start but... I would like to either have SUN extend it or make
it possible for the 'community' to do this.

BTW, I seem to remember the DDA may once have been referred to (during
initial development) as the 'flat file adapter'?  At the time, we were
working with customers looking at the early (Linux-based) release of
JDS(2) and the prospect of APOC combined with a 'flat file
adapter' (which we took literally to mean the ability to potentially,
manipulate _any_ flat file) was very exciting.  So, I guess another
reason (more related to my own interests than customers) for having
access to DDA source would be to either adapt the adapter (sorry) for
other uses or to use it as an example to create a real 'flat file
adapter'.  Examples that spring to mind would be to manage applications
with 'flat' configuration files and even 'other' desktop environments
e.g. IceWM.

I see from the wiki that SUN 'might' release the code for FireFox and
OpenOffice adapters ...is this likely to happen any time soon?

If the source for FireFox and OpenOffice adapters is released then is
there any reason why the DDA source would not be made available as well?

Regards,

Peter