GNOME Roadmap Side Notes

Developers Wishlist

• A better theming infrastructure for gtk-themes.
• Icon name fallback in gtk.
• we would like to see a synchronisation framework (e.g. clutter), which every gnome application could use.
  • for now, every gnome app has to do its own stuff, which isnt that great
• Would be great if bugzilla could detect duplicate bugs itsself. I spend a lot of time marking duplicates.
• Using git
• Git
• Nothing in particular. It would be nice to have something more standard for the project websites that doesn't require manually updating the pages when a new release is published

• What would really help me is more people contributing

• good crash.gnome.org integration with bugzilla
• chpe: We should use GIT instead of SVN !
• Mixer APIs are (#*#$(@)! Theaare is need to find solution in ALSA/HAL/DeviceKit that PA (and drivers) could expose.
• MPRIS would be a nice addition to provide simpe common controls/notifications of media players
• a fdo spec for a dbus API related to session management
• I'll leave my comment from the last cycle here unchanged: "Direction. :-P"

• For "better list view interaction", improvements to GtkTreeView are required. I made some proposals for improving rubber banding selection in a gtk-devel-list email. We also need single-click activation inside GtkTreeView.

• A curtain widget similar to what [Gedit] has for their error messages that inherits from GtkBin or GtkContainer as discussed on 1] 2].

• git and gitweb. Oh and also git would be nice.
• If we could get a server where various flavors of web services are could be installed, like various ftp, webdav servers, so we could make sure that our backends work with most of the stuff out there would be neat. Of course we can also use Virtual Machines for that, which might even make more sense.
• Git and a nice git-web
• A good documentation for lockdown for developers
• Maybe some API to easily check for common lockdown things (like "is printing allowed?")
• A reminder email notification of pending GNOME release, about 48 hours before, would be nice.
• Better mango software (still the case)
• Possibly a SSL certificate (not self-signed like now).
• Use of GPG to speed up authentication/verification.

Suggested GNOME-wide goals

• Better panel ~ windows ~ applications relationship (any reason to have one icon to launch, one button to manage window, one tray icon to see status? I'm living an identity crisis: I'm starting to believe that MacOS approach [unique menubar + dock] could be good)
• Review file-chooser dialog appearance (well, enhance current behavior and layout is really good IMHO)

• GtkDialog default values for border and inner spacing should respect HIG

• Device icons that do smart stuff with HAL would be nice.
• gnome-wide file synchronisation framework
• more icecream for vuntz
• sexy gtk, clutter, blingbling
• Improve DVB/TV experience.
• Finally remove deprecated dependencies: gnome-vfs, libgnomeprint, libgnome, bonobo, ...
• Can we finally bury libgnome/ui for good?
• Figure out what to do with this module (gnome-desktop). Keep it? Kill it? Use libgnome-desktop as an integration library for things that can't go in gtk+?
• Make user-visible changes. Sexy stuff. Also, at some point, it'd be great to concentrate on fixing bugs: bugzilla is getting more and more bugs. We need more people.
• deprecated esd...

• git/bzr, Gtk+ 3.0, Clutter, Vala, Topaz, more love and more chocolate

• Quick notes based on discussion with RaphaelSlinckx:

  • e-d-s is to hard to use, we'd love to have an easier API
  • e-d-s can't handle short-lived data (like people who are connecting on IM)
  • fixing e-d-s is a huge amount of work
  • e-d-s could be at the center of the desktop (replace galago to handle the presence, eg)

• GnomeThumbnail should be moved out of libgnomeui, maybe into GTK+.

• In general, we should try to patronize concrete subprojects (like SoC, but architectural), because usually maintainers do not have time for implementing everything they need themselves.
• Pick an instant messenger client and cut out the pidgin/collago/gossip/empathy confusion. Use these and Galago to properly handle presence information/integration.
• Removal of Sound Juicer as a stand-alone application thanks to addition of a music player to GNOME.
• I think we should have a 'people' framework, and a concept of 'my status'. For instance, if my status now is 'Busy', My IM status automatically switches to it and I don't get any notification from any program. If I watch a fullscreen video, my status would change to 'Busy', and so on...
• Also, I think we should work hard to get rid of obsolete technologies, like Bonobo.
• As a side effect, we would have a better API to panel applets.
• Make sure gvfs gets used by various modules.
• I would like to see improved GNOME 'platform' support for developer tools. So far all focus is on User Desktop support, but some of those users are also developers.
  • For example, there is elaborate mime-type icons available in platform for document files (doc, pdf, xls, txt, img ...), but very little for developer files (language file, hearder files, executables, shared libraries, static libraries, Makefile.am, Changlog ...). So, while file manager window looks extremely nice in your 'documents folder', it looks flat white in your source directory (and in IDE like anjuta).