[compiz] meta data update

[Mike Dransfield]

Dennis Kasprzyk wrote:
> Am Freitag, 11. Mai 2007 18:36 schrieben Sie:
>   
>>
>> I think the point is that plugins should not be aware of other
>> plugins at all and should not do anything bad if those plugins
>> are not loaded.
>>
>>     
> The point is here that some plugins extend or rely on functionality provided 
> by other plugins. And we should provide here a consistent system. 
> otherScreenGrabExists provides a functionality do do things like "I can only 
> do my job if no other plugin that I don't know has a screen grab". We miss 
> here the screenGrabExists function that would provide something like "I can 
> only do my job it one of the plugins I know is active".
>   

Do you have any specific examples where this is the case and
bad things happen if the other plugin is not loaded?

Bad things would be crashing or total loss of functionality (ie.
total distortion of the screen)

>> They should be written in such a way that it does not matter if
>> the dependencies are not loaded, they will just lack some
>> functionality.  ie.  It should be possible to load rotate without
>> cube and it would not behave badly, the same for loading rotate
>> before cube.
>>
>>     
> I agree here but we should provide systems that makes it easy to for 
> developers to handle unusual plugin configurations.
>   

You should be able to write a function like this

Bool otherPluginLoadedBeforeMe (...)
{
    return TRUE;
}

and everything should still work, if it does not then it is probably
a limitation in core that needs to be fixed.

Once the dependency code is removed it will be possible to
load rotate without or before cube so it will be interesting to
see what happens.  Nothing should happen, even if the user
tries to rotate without cube loaded.


>>> Dennis
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> compiz mailing list
>>> compiz at lists.freedesktop.org
>>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/compiz
>>>       
>
>