Hi, On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 04:47:17PM +0200, Giuseppe Sacco wrote:
> Il mer, 2003-07-30 alle 13:46, Sebastian Ley ha scritto: > > * Sebastian Ley wrote: > > > > > here we go to add some discussion on the never ending topic of a > > > graphical installer. The current implementation of the gtk-frontend > > > for cdebconf is highly unsatisfactory. Because of the limited debconf > > > capabilities it is a mere question asker which is not what one would > > > expect from a graphical installer. > > > > Okay, perhaps I sould elaborate on this a bit more to raise your > > interest in this topic ;-) > > It is already very intersting for me :-) > I think that in order to support a more sophisticad interaction we > should change the interface protocol in order to add/remove more widget. > This is basically what you pointed out, and I agree on your idea. I do > not know if storing the widget in an .so is much complicated or if it > creates a big overhead, but I like it. > > The first step should be to specify what will be the UI manager (text, > dialog, gtk, ...) and then to choice which widget should be implemented. > > A first (short) list of widgets could be: > > 1. A keyboard selector (that could show the different layout) > 2. A disk selector (with fidderent icon for different kind of devices) > 3. A partitioner (where to specify dimension, position, file system for > every partition) Wouldn't it be better to create a wire (pipe) protocol for slightly lower level widgets, such as 1. button 2. scroll bar 3. list ... These are still sufficiently abstract for use on character terminals as well as frame buffers, but allow you to build higher level widgets (partition selectors) independently from the rendering backend. Having to know that the user can choose keyboards as well as disks when creating a new rendering backend is not very nice. If the installer provides the backend with a bitmap and a text label for each item in a selection list, then a backend only has to deal with those and may become useful outside the debian installers. Creating graphics Q&D apps in any language, including shell scripts, is one example. An (ascii) bytestream protocol that deals with widgets is tremendously useful, IMHO. Cheers, Emile. -- E-Advies - Emile van Bergen [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel. +31 (0)70 3906153 http://www.e-advies.nl
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