DConf configuration system

[Buola Buola]

Hi,

On Apr 7, 2005 4:13 PM, Joerg Barfurth <jub at sun.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Dave Cridland wrote:
> > On Wed Apr  6 23:24:25 2005, Chris Lee wrote:
> 
> >> Let me explain. Not only would DConf be useless duplication of
> >> existing effort, but evangelizing it to different projects - including
> >> KDE and GNOME, not to mention OpenOffice.org and Mozilla and XFCE and
> >> ... - would take time, and effort, and the net result is that even
> >> *if* everyone adopted this cracktastic great new configuration system
> >> (which won't happen) they gain no major benefit from it. This won't
> >> help them work on Windows, or OS X.
> >>
> 
> > No, I don't think a shared config system *is* a duplication of effort.
> > Currently, a third party app cannot possibly know which of the many
> > crack-induced configuration systems are in use. A single point of entry,
> > a shared configuration namespace, etc - these are important things for
> > those of us who use our desktops, and don't just religiously use one set
> > of approved applications.
> >
> 
> I fully agree.
> 
> The main goals to me are:
> 1) allow to use the same administration infrastructure with either
> desktop (and desktop-independent apps)
> 2) allow sharing configuration (where applicable) between desktops in
> multi-desktop environments
> 3) provide a desktop-neutral API to this systems, to which all
> applications (at least all that are not part of one particlar desktop)
> can be written

That last point is an important point. Why don't we stop thinking of 
"gnome applications" and "kde applications" and start thinking about
desktop applications we can choose without making some kind of
religious acceptance of one of the major desktops. Besides, there are
many people (including myself) developing aplpications which are not
part of either desktop, and who want to make their applications
dependant on as little libraries as possible, without having to
reinvent the wheel. I decided to start working on something like
D-Conf when I found myself looking at the glib documentation to try to
use GConf.
That's why an XDG configuration system is necessary as are many more
XDG standards which I hope appear soon.

> 
> > Maybe Mozilla uses D-Conf - so what if they have to do different things
> > on Windows or Mac OS X? If a cross-platform app happens to have a single
> > place to get preferences from on free desktops, that's *got* to be a
> > better situation than exists now.
> >
> 
> Both mozilla and OpenOffice.org don't use the 'native' configuration
> system (Windows Registry) on Windows. At least OOo doesn't use anything
> native on OS X either (yet). For crossplattform apps it is important to
> do as much as possible in a crossplattform way. Thus it would be highly
> desirable, if D-Conf could be ported to Windows (and OS X) as well.
> 
If we make D-Conf a DBus service then it can be ported to wherever
DBus can be ported, and everyone can use it without having to link
anything besides DBus (which I hope everyone will use soon)
> > Yes, yes, I know UniConf exists, but what I don't know is if it's being
> > used. And there's no way for Mozilla to tell. A single, well-specified,
> > entry point to "the configuration" is needed, and vital.
> >
> 
> Agreed
> 
Yes, the important thing is not if it exists, but if everyone knows
that it exists and starts loving it. I would start using it today if I
knew that it has a nice DBus interface which won't change next week,
and that I will find it installed (or available to be installed) in
the computers where my software might be installed.
Does anyone know which distros include Uniconf (with DBus support) and
the stability of the DBus API?

> Ciao, Joerg
> 
> --
> Joerg Barfurth              Sun Microsystems - Desktop - Hamburg
>  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> using std::disclaimer <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> Software Engineer                         joerg.barfurth at sun.com
> OpenOffice.org Configuration          http://util.openoffice.org
> 
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