Comments on: People menu: online desktop and instant messaging in GNOME

By: Seif Lotfy

Seif Lotfy — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 01:53:56 +0000

I think gimmie is a good base for that since a plugin manager is being developed to (amongst other features) help to detemine whihc IM and contacts are tu be used. As in Pidgin Gajim empathy or gossip. Also it applies for stuff like evolution or Thunderbird or maybe all.
I know some ppl dont like the UI of gimmie, but if u r going to develop something its easier to help out changing the UI of gimmie that already gives you to features ur looking for then integrating new feautres in an (in my opinion) old dying panel.

By: Roumano

Roumano — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:49:35 +0000

Very, Very good idea.
After, the methode of how to to do this is a other question ( gimmie or not, optionaly or not … ) But i dont’t care, it’s a very good idea.

By: lucasr

lucasr — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:51:22 +0000

@Karl, why don’t you just use the main menu applet? I takes very small space. :-)

@Luis, I don’t entirely agree with you as none of the possible alternatives (gimmie, gnome-main-menu, etc) have convinced me that they are real improvements over the current main menu bar. They may look more “modern”, and maybe more “powerful”, but that’s not a valid argument per se. It would be nice to have a rational and objective discussion (a “Main Menu Meeting”?) among directly involved developers, UI designers, and release team to list current issues and potential aproaches. Every time a discussion about changing default panel layout happens in d-d-l, it just becomes a useless/boring/crappy flame war.

By: Luis Villa

Luis Villa — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:21:46 +0000

Anyway, I agree that this proposal is relatively conservative but, on the other hand, it (potentially) fits very well on the current menu bar.

‘your house is full of cow shit. I’m not going to clean your house, but hey, I’m spending time growing flowers in it!’

The current menu bar isn’t worth saving. Putting more functionality into it gets us further away from the day we kill it, and that is a bad thing.

By: Murray Cumming

Murray Cumming — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:46:52 +0000

Alex, Gimmie has document and application browsing, and a bunch of other ” All Your Stuff”. But this is just about communicating with people. You need to break it down (and integrate properly with telepathy/empathy) to get any part of it accepted widely. It’s not a new paradigm – it’s just a menu.

By: Karl Lattimer

Karl Lattimer — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 09:00:45 +0000

last post got messed up because of my daft usage of gt/lt operators.

— should have been like this —
but would rather I could specify what I WANT to use if you get my meaning.

Think about it like this;

-APPLICATIONS- -PLACES- -PEOPLE- -SYSTEM-

^-TAKES UP TOO MUCH SPACE ON MY PANEL!!!!!-^

—

By: Karl Lattimer

Karl Lattimer — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:59:19 +0000

One thing that seriously pisses me off about that gnome menu bar is that I can’t chop and change the menu entries. You’re simply adding yet another button that I might use, but would rather I could specify what > I WANT

^-TAKES UP TOO MUCH SPACE ON MY PANEL!!!!!-^

Why can’t it just be apps and places or just apps, or just system or just people. It doesn’t make sense that although we are champions of choice we still impose this on gnome users.

why not allow me to add each menu independently, I believe there is already a bug filed for this since something like 2.4, I am however unable to track it down.

Lucas, drop me a line on facebook or email if you’d like to discuss this, and maybe I’ll do the splitting of the applet myself if I can find the time.

By: Jay Ellington

Jay Ellington — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:44:31 +0000

I personally love this idea, It adds to the desktop expierience in a non intrusive way (maybey an online menu instead of a people menu would make more sense). I don’t like how everyone is so ready to discard an environment that has been amazing to work with all these years. GNOME rules, lets improve it, not screw it in a rush to be web enabled. No offense to gimmie but it just isn’t what I want.

By: Jason CLinton

Jason CLinton — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:30:04 +0000

Telepathy is the framework; its a good idea. Empathy is a rip-off of Gossip with lots of problems.

+1 telepathy
-1 empathy

By: Seif Lotfy

Seif Lotfy — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:08:54 +0000

@Adam: Gimmie already supports Pidgin officially…
There have patches lying around for Gajim and evolution support
An empathy support has been started.
However it has been decided to change a bit in infrastructure
plug-in manager is being develeoped so it will be easier for people to decide which IM they want to use and other web app services.

@Alessandro: Well i agree that gimmie doesnt look that sexy yet however as soon as the 0.3.0 is out. I think more work will be done on improving the UI … also a color chooser dialog patch for the gimmie panel is already there however needs some love