Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (89 mails)

[Magnus Boman <captain.magnus@xxxxxxxxx>]

Forwarding to ml...

On Tue, 2007-09-11 at 12:22 +0100, Michael Meeks wrote:
> Hi Clayton,
> 
>         To echo Magnus, thanks again for the feedback.
> 
>         Personally I was surprised your comments were not more of the form
> "this new thing is not usable" ;-) since there are a number of bugs we
> are currently fixing here & hope to have in the next beta. I'm certainly
> not happy with the current state. Boyd Timothy is working away at it as
> we speak :-)
> 
> On Tue, 2007-09-11 at 21:03 +1000, Magnus Boman wrote:
> > > The result is a GTK YAST component that is radically different from
> > > the QT version.
> 
>         Sure.
>  
> > > This raises an important usability issue... with a totally different
> > > software maintenance component between Gnome and KDE, there is a major
> > > impact to documentation, support and the development path.
> 
>         Hokay, agreed - however this is basically true of all existing Gnome /
> KDE differences :-) how do I launch applications ? where is the menu ?
> how do I configure the networking ? change the screen size ? etc. So,
> agreed - but we're used to this problem in a lot of areas I think.
> 
> > > Development must now continue down two paths
> 
>         And yes there is a cost to this of course.
>  
> > > 1.  Whenever a major change is introduced that radically changes the
> > > workflow of core components (like YAST), there must be a simple and
> > > clear way to switch between the new way of working and the old.
> 
>         I agree that it would be ideal to expose the old software installer for
> those people that like it & are familiar with it. I'm still a fan of
> using the (fixed) new installer by default, since IMHO it is rather
> simpler to use.
> 
>         The technical problem here is that by design the Qt package installer
> was an integral part of yast2-qt, while in many ways being quite a
> separable hunk of code. I am hoping that Stefan's nice re-work of the
> yast2 UI backend code will (as one result) allow us to de-couple the Qt
> package installer from the frontend, and have it run as a standalone
> application of some sort. Is that so Stefan ?
> 
>         ie. currently the choice foisted on us by the underlying design is
> (nearly): either no Gtk+ integration at all, or all of it including the
> package selector.
> 
> > > A radical change like the GTK software installer costs time and
> > > money for people who now have to contend with this change.
> 
>         Of course, any chance is costly; I'd personally like to help with that
> by increasing the performance & ease of use of the new solution, and
> understanding the use-cases you have for it. IMHO conceptually,
> installing packages should not require intensive training :-)
> 
> > > 2.  If a radical change or improvement is in the works for a YAST
> > > component, then that change must include BOTH the GTK and QT versions.
> > > (or as a bare minimum, there must be a plan to synch the two tools
> > > within one release cycle).
> 
>         As you point out, this is the case for ~virtually everything except the
> package selector; which is unfortunately an oddity here; and I hope we
> can provide in parallel the old style tool you're obviously familiar
> with for the next release.
> 
> > > 3.  The GTK software installation component of YAST should either be
> > > reworked to bring the workflow back in line with the existing QT one,
> > > or the QT version needs to be reworked to bring its workflow in line
> > > with the GTK one.
> 
>         At root this cuts to the heart of some Gnome vs. KDE philosophical
> differences I think, which are prolly best not discussed. As a
> caricature: one side rejoices in exposing complexity to the power user,
> and at the other extreme the other would prefer a computer to have just
> one button labelled "make money" that can be clicked repeatedly ;-)
> 
> > >  Of course this would also include usability improvements  and fixing
> > > the old backend (something both versions are in real need of).
> 
>         AFAICS, the backend is libzypp and is a separate issue really; the
> installer is mostly UI AFAICS.
> 
>         Does this make some sense ?
> 
>         Thanks,
> 
>                 Michael.
> 

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