On Thu, 19 Mar 2015 08:14:37 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> Since OpenSUSE 13.1, gsettings likes to randomly revert certain
>>> settings every 103 reboots, for no defined reason. This is extremely
>>> unhelpful.
>>
>> Could be a bug.  Have you asked in the openSUSE forums for some help,
>> and/
>> or reported a bug?
> 
> Given how excruciatingly hard it is to get access to the OpenSUSE bug
> tracker... no, I haven't.

1. Create user ID
2. Validate your e-mail address
3. Go to bugzilla.opensuse.org and enter a bug

Not terribly difficult, really.

> Besides, they'll just report it upstream and then go back to doing
> nothing. That's what they did with the Zypper bug I spent ages
> diagnosing and reporting.

You don't know that unless you file a bug.  File a bug, or don't 
complain.  Seriously, that is probably the most annoying thing you can do 
is bitch about something that's fixable and not report a bug.

>>> But the *most* unhelpful thing is that half the things you want to
>>> change DON'T HAVE SETTINGS! For example, there is no setting to bring
>>> back the minimise and maximise buttons; you have to install an
>>> extension.
>>
>> No, you don't. gnome-tweak-tool ->  Windows.
> 
> Perhaps it was the "show task list" option then. I remember spending
> weeks trying to configure the shell the way we want it, and in the end I
> couldn't do it.

Not sure what you mean by "show task list option".  What was the specific 
thing you were trying to do?

>>> But I guess that's a symptom of another worryingly common problem:
>>> GNOME 3 is *clearly* designed to run on a tablet or a phone. Because
>>> nobody uses desktop PCs anymore, right? Right??>_<
>>
>> I use GNOME3 every day, and not on a tablet or touchscreen.  Works fine
>> here.
> 
> I'm not saying it doesn't *work*. I'm saying it's clearly not optimal.

It's optimal for me, and I don't use a tablet.  "Optimal" is clearly a 
matter of personal taste, and I wish people would stop putting forth 
their personal opinion as cold hard fact - it's not.

> The way they try to stop you arranging multiple windows visible at once,
> the way they try to steer you away from multitasking. Heck, the latest
> revision even removed a scrollbar and replaced it with a sequence of
> buttons, so it'll work better with a touchscreen.

I don't see any of those issues.

> 
>>> Riiiight. Because I haven't already read that page 65,536 times. :-P
>>
>> You said it wasn't documented.  It is.
> 
> How you write a minimal Hello World type thing is documented. The vast,
> sprawling mass of code you need to interact with to do anything
> nontrivial is utterly undocumented.
> 
> How do I respond to window open/close events? Not documented. How do I
> determine what tray icons are defined? Not documented. How do I resize
> an existing window? Not documented. Would you like me to continue?

Since I don't write extensions, it's kinda pointless for you to 
continue.  However, again, given your track record, I'm not going to take 
it on faith that your assertion that these things aren't documented is 
true.  You'll have to forgive me my cynicism on that point.

>>> Basically, you write a shell extension by writing a JavaScript file
>>> that contains [at least] three functions with specific names. These
>>> functions work by MONKEY-PATCHING THE LIVE RUNNING CODE to make it do
>>> something different. The extension itself is responsible for reverting
>>> these changes when you disable the extension. (In particular, there
>>> are extensions that cannot be disabled, or don't disable properly.)
>>> Leaving this critical detail up to people who don't really know what
>>> they're doing and have no documentation to go by is... not optimal.
>>
>> Got a better idea about how to do it?
> 
> How about, I don't know, the system generating a reverse diff as you
> change stuff, and then applying that diff when you turn the extension
> off? It's more work for the framework, but then less work for the
> extension author. And I'd *hope* the framework is rather better tested
> than your typical extension...
> 
>>> This, then, is how you write a shell extension. And how do you work
>>> out which part of THE ENTIRE SHELL CODEBASE you need to monkey-patch
>>> to make the changes you want?
>>>
>>> You read the source code.
>>>
>>> For the entire shell.
>>
>> No.  What you do is you identify what it is you want to do, and you
>> find that part of the code, if that's the way it's actually done (I
>> don't for a moment pretend to have written an extension, however given
>> your track record in overstating things, you don't really think I'm
>> going to take your word for it, do you? ;) )
> 
> You realise I got *paid money* to write several shell extensions and
> modify some existing ones, right?

You realise that that's no guarantee that anyone's an expert at a task, 
right? I know lots of people who get paid to do things who don't take the 
optimal route to doing them.

How many questions did you ask on, oh, I don't know, the GNOME mailing 
lists?

> Indeed, it seems the only "documentation" for how to do anything is to
> read the source code for extensions that other people have already
> written.
> 
> (How THE HELL these other people wrote this stuff utterly baffles me...
> I guess one or two people might have too much free time, but given the
> vast number of extensions available [most of which add back
> functionality that GNOME 2 had built-in], it screams that somebody
> somewhere must have some real documentation...)

Bingo!  Just because you didn't happen to look in the right place doesn't 
mean that the documentation doesn't exist.

>>> Because there's no documentation. Indeed, one Stack Overflow commenter
>>> helpfully commented that "there SHOULD be no documentation, because
>>> the source code is the documentation". No, random Internet user, the
>>> source code is not and will never be the documentation. Because the
>>> source code gives you the *implementation* not the *interface*.
>>>
>>> Then again, when your entire extensibility platform is fundamentally
>>> based on purposely breaking encapsulation to start with...
>>
>> Um, no, it's based on extending encapsulation in an OO way, as I
>> understand it.  It's somewhat like using DITA specializations, or
>> extending an object class in a directory service.
> 
> In an OO language, you don't generally modify a huge, complex framework
> by deleting code from the running system and replacing it with your own.

Of course not.

> Then again, JavaScript isn't completely OO, so...

And "deleting code from the running system" isn't the same as extending 
it.

Jim

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message