[Sugar-devel] FreeDesktop integration UI discussion

[Dave Crossland]

Hi

Sebastian just edited the wiki about the amazing FreeDesktop integration
work he's been doing:

https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/index.php?title=Features/FreeDesktop_integration&diff=next&oldid=98058

He added 2 ui questions:

> How to choose .desktop files to show in Sugar Launcher.

I think something similar to the "Fonts v1" activity would be good to
start; a simple activity that lists all of the .desktop files available,
and a star to select/deselect them. Would the output likely be a simple
text file with all the selected files's full paths? That way, anyone could
easily make such a text file before the UI is ready.

https://github.com/sugarlabs/edit-fonts-activity/tree/94c443f1b1c394f12edcb0af156542a4cee6c808

> How to make Journal and Activities behave well outside sugar (i.e. handle
resize, multiple screens or virtual desktops)

I think the core question is if Sugar becomes a MDI outside of its SDI
desktop context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_document_interface

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface

For me, I think a MDI Sugar is a simple solution to all those issues you
list: it means the Journal and each Activity are each just another window.
Perhaps the only 'special' window is a "Home" activity where the frame is
always visible, and in which its possible to switch from Home to Groups to
Neighborhood to Network.

Of course, it might be nice to add - as GIMP did when it went the other way
from MDI to SDI - a preference so that there could be a single "Sugar"
window that offers an experience similar to running a SOAS VM.

That could even be done using suitably configured 3rd party software rather
than writing our own code... I remember a long time ago when Sawfish was
the GNOME 2 window manager that you could write lisp scripts to
programmatically place windows, and I think there was something specific
for that purpose when GNOME moved to metacity (that was also scripted in
lisp) but I forgot its name. =)

Cheers
Dave
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