WANTED: Perl / GTK+ hacker

[Josselin Mouette]

Hi,

the GNOME backend for Debconf is slightly outdated nowadays. It uses
some APIs that are being deprecated, and there are now solutions to make
the same things with less dependencies.

Since the guy who originally wrote it (Eric Gillespie) is no longer part
of the project, I’m looking for a developer who knows Perl enough to
make a port to GTK+. The largest part of the problem is porting from
GnomeDruid to GtkAssistant, which probably only requires a few hours for
a knowledgeable person.

Any volunteers?

--
 .''`.      Josselin Mouette
: :' :
`. `'   “I recommend you to learn English in hope that you in
  `-     future understand things”  -- Jörg Schilling

[Kalle Olavi Niemitalo]

Josselin Mouette <joss@...> writes:

> The largest part of the problem is porting from GnomeDruid to
> GtkAssistant, which probably only requires a few hours for a
> knowledgeable person.

The back button of GtkAssistant seems troublesome.
In GnomeDruidPage, the back and next buttons just emit signals,
which Debconf::FrontEnd::Gnome then handles by exiting the main
loop and returning '' or 1 from sub go.  In GtkAssistant however,
the back button backtraces a private visited_pages list, and it
is automatically hidden when this list is empty.

Approaches to be considered:

(a) Prepend an empty GTK_ASSISTANT_PAGE_INTRO.  When displaying the
    GtkAssistant, immediately switch to the GTK_ASSISTANT_PAGE_CONTENT
    where the actual Debconf question is; if the GtkAssistant has
    already been mapped, gtk_assistant_set_current_page then adds
    the intro to visited_pages.  If the user clicks the back button,
    detect the intro page in the prepare signal.

(b) Handle the clicked signal from the back button and make the
    button visible against the wishes of GtkAssistant.  If the
    visited_pages list remains empty at all times, then the
    handler added by GtkAssistant does nothing, and there is no
    need to remove it.

(c) Remove the original back button from its container and add
    a custom one in its place.

(d) Just add a custom button that has nothing to do with the back
    button.

(e) Rewrite Debconf so that the go method of Debconf::FrontEnd
    is allowed to redisplay previous pages without returning.

[Luca Bruno aka Lethalman]

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 05:21:55PM +0300, Kalle Olavi Niemitalo wrote:

> Josselin Mouette <joss@...> writes:
>
> > The largest part of the problem is porting from GnomeDruid to
> > GtkAssistant, which probably only requires a few hours for a
> > knowledgeable person.
>
> The back button of GtkAssistant seems troublesome.
> In GnomeDruidPage, the back and next buttons just emit signals,
> which Debconf::FrontEnd::Gnome then handles by exiting the main
> loop and returning '' or 1 from sub go.  In GtkAssistant however,
> the back button backtraces a private visited_pages list, and it
> is automatically hidden when this list is empty.

In reportbug we set previous pages insensitive. So the user goes back but
can't click anything.

--
http://syx.berlios.de - Smalltalk YX
http://www.debian.org - The Universal Operating System

[Sandro Tosi-4]

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 16:42, Luca Bruno<lethalman88@...> wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 05:21:55PM +0300, Kalle Olavi Niemitalo wrote:
>> Josselin Mouette <joss@...> writes:
>>
>> > The largest part of the problem is porting from GnomeDruid to
>> > GtkAssistant, which probably only requires a few hours for a
>> > knowledgeable person.
>>
>> The back button of GtkAssistant seems troublesome.
>> In GnomeDruidPage, the back and next buttons just emit signals,
>> which Debconf::FrontEnd::Gnome then handles by exiting the main
>> loop and returning '' or 1 from sub go.  In GtkAssistant however,
>> the back button backtraces a private visited_pages list, and it
>> is automatically hidden when this list is empty.
>
> In reportbug we set previous pages insensitive. So the user goes back but
> can't click anything.

Not without complains, tho :)

Cheers,
--
Sandro Tosi (aka morph, morpheus, matrixhasu)
My website: http://matrixhasu.altervista.org/
Me at Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/SandroTosi


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-gtk-gnome-REQUEST@...
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@...

[Josselin Mouette]

Le samedi 15 août 2009 à 17:21 +0300, Kalle Olavi Niemitalo a écrit :
> The back button of GtkAssistant seems troublesome.
> In GnomeDruidPage, the back and next buttons just emit signals,
> which Debconf::FrontEnd::Gnome then handles by exiting the main
> loop and returning '' or 1 from sub go.  In GtkAssistant however,
> the back button backtraces a private visited_pages list, and it
> is automatically hidden when this list is empty.

> (b) Handle the clicked signal from the back button and make the
>     button visible against the wishes of GtkAssistant.  If the
>     visited_pages list remains empty at all times, then the
>     handler added by GtkAssistant does nothing, and there is no
>     need to remove it.

This is probably the right behavior, and mimics what the current
GnomeDruid frontend does.

BTW, if debconf does not use the page sequencing ability of
GtkAssistant, what’s the point of using it at all? You can just define a
GtkDialog with 3 buttons (GTK_STOCK_GO_BACK, GTK_STOCK_CANCEL and
GTK_STOCK_GO_FORWARD), add whatever handlers you want to these buttons,
and use GtkDialog->run which removes the need from exiting manually from
the main loop.

How does it sound?
--
 .''`.      Josselin Mouette
: :' :
`. `'   “I recommend you to learn English in hope that you in
  `-     future understand things”  -- Jörg Schilling

[Josselin Mouette]

Le samedi 15 août 2009 à 11:26 +0200, Josselin Mouette a écrit :
> Since the guy who originally wrote it (Eric Gillespie) is no longer part
> of the project, I’m looking for a developer who knows Perl enough to
> make a port to GTK+. The largest part of the problem is porting from
> GnomeDruid to GtkAssistant, which probably only requires a few hours for
> a knowledgeable person.

Apparently an Ubuntu developer decided to do it at the same moment. See
http://bugs.debian.org/542175

Cheers,
--
 .''`.      Josselin Mouette
: :' :
`. `'   “I recommend you to learn English in hope that you in
  `-     future understand things”  -- Jörg Schilling