"Eric G . Miller" <[email protected]> writes: > On Mon, May 01, 2000 at 07:59:25PM -0700, Ross Boylan wrote: > > I've been using GNOME for awhile in potato--my first encounter with > > it. It just doesn't seem ready. I know potato is pre-release, and we > > may not have the latest GNOME in it, and the GNOME folks are working > > hard. > > > > So I thought I'd gripe, check if this matches others experience, and > > then maybe file some bug reports if I haven't made some configuration
to the original poster: which version of gnome are you using ? There is a much-improved 1.x out now (well, it is currently beta, but will be released sometime soon: "April" GNOME). > > goof. I also have no idea if the problem is GNOME or the debian > > integration of GNOME. > > > > I'm running on i386, mostly with sawmill window manager. gdm runs the show. > > > > Stability: > > Balsa crashes very frequently. Balsa is something like 0.6.x, so consider using a different e-mail-client. Since I am not aware of any stable GNOME email-clients, I would prefer a text-based one or kmail if you've got KDE installed. > > Features: > > Session management is not there. All my windows come back in the > > first pane of the desktop. There seems to be no way to get rid of > > things once they are in there. I tried closing them and resaving the > > session. I tried deleting them from the session configuration tool > > (whose help button, by the way, does nothing). The net result of this > > is that I now have about 6 xman's running when I start up. > > The features in most places are pretty thin--for example, balsa is not > > very capable even when it is running. > > I wouldn't judge the whole kit-n-kaboodle on one application. > Especially, one that's slated for replacement. However, I can't > disagree that most of the GNOME apps have only a rudimentary > functionality. Still, the improvement over earlier generations is quite > significant. I read an interview of one of the GNOME developers > recently who said GNOME is currently around the equivalent of early > Windows or Windows 3 functionality. So, it's well known there's still a > ways to go. > > Aesthetics: > > I think the default enlightenment theme--in fact most of the themes > > for most of the window managers--are just ugly. The default theme > > makes it look as if you have a rusting scrap heap on your desk. > > > > Only the NextStep derivatives have a decent look, to my eye. > > GTK is just not very attractive. GNOME can't do too much about that > until the look of the base widget system is improved. But, heck, it > looks better than Tk apps! there are themes available at gtk.themes.org (for example "aqua" a la Mac-OS 9 or "informer" which aims to be plain). You can change this in the control-panel (win95, motif and pixmap are included by default). > > Internal Design: > > I think GNOME's facilities and interfaces should have been done in > > object oriented fashion. Instead, it's got this clunky C interface > > that reminds me of MS Windows. I understand KDE went the other > > route. Yes, I know it can all be packaged in CORBA someday, but why > > do the How to program for GNOME docs say (it has been awhile since I > > looked) that the C interface is the native one? because it is the lowest layer. all other language-bindings are stacked on top of it. > Well, I'm not going to get into a C vs. C++ flame war. However, my > rudimentary knowledge of the GNOME and GTK interface is that it *is* > designed in the closest approximation to object-orientation that C can > do. I think there's a promising future for libglade with Python driving > the show. Then there's a bit more "object orientedness". Still, you'd > probably want to do heavy processing with a compiled language. There are also advantages of a C-based GNOME: - usable from C-applications (like libxml) - it seems that many fsf-programmers are most familiar with C - many possibilities for scripting-languages. - GNOME still uses CORBA, as opposed to KDE. maybe this is only possible with the the fast C-implementation of CORBA: ORBit ? (CORBA is a standard for network-transparent interface-definitions) - C++-wrappers are available: Gtk-- and Gnome-- (gtkmm.sourceforge.net) -- Felix Natter
