Mageia forum

I'm (trying to) writing new drakxtools.
I'm first trying to port basic tools, and here, I have some work done on drakdm, the display manager.
It is one of the most simple components from drakxtools, but it can still be useful.

This new drakdm uses
- Python
- PyQt (+ planned PyGTK, ncurses, need help here)
- PolicyKit via DBus (+ planned "non DBus mode")

Here are some screenshots




EDIT 1 : Isadora, I'm just struggling with my slow connection
EDIT 2 : Note, until today 11h36 (GMT + 1), nothing works, but the basis are here. Adding some more lines (~20) will make the stuff work, but I'm lazy, I'm just gonna eat

Somehow i miss these screenshots Sfiet_Konstantin.

Indeed I was not lazy enough, I coded the missing part.
But I need some more polishing before release it for testing.

Currently known bugs :
* No authentification prompt in IceWM
* Need to restart dm manually for applying settings

https://gitorious.org/drakxtools-ng/drakxtools-ng
Feel free to test

Code: Select all

git clone git@gitorious.org:drakxtools-ng/drakxtools-ng.git
cd drakxtools-ng
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/
sudo make install
drakdm-ng


Feel also free to contribute

You should send this to the mageia-dev mailing list, that's where the developers are:
https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev

Sure but I really want some feedback from users.
Since DrakXTools are for users, I want them to check if the tool is intuitive to use, if I'm doing it right ...

Sfiet_Konstantin wrote:https://gitorious.org/drakxtools-ng/drakxtools-ng
Feel free to test

Code: Select all

git clone git@gitorious.org:drakxtools-ng/drakxtools-ng.git


This is what i get:

Code: Select all

[doktor5000@mageia1 ~]$ git clone git@gitorious.org:drakxtools-ng/drakxtools-ng.git
Cloning into drakxtools-ng...
Warning: Permanently added 'gitorious.org,87.238.52.168' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

Sorry, I have given the SSH version.
Here is the non SSH version

Code: Select all

git clone git://gitorious.org/drakxtools-ng/drakxtools-ng.git
cd drakxtools-ng
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/
sudo make install
drakdm-ng


i tested it , i think it is in the right direction with a beautifull and integated gui

this is just what mageia really need

two ui compatable with Qt & GTK

********
i wish to your project to be a successful one

by the way ..... can you give us a rpm package for drakedm

From a short look, IMHO it's not the long term way to go. Actually it should have been only an added
QT frontend to the already existing GTK and ncurses frontends, and no rewrite.

And as Mandriva already showed, this can also be done with a carefully selected theme
so it integrates well with either desktop environment ...

doktor5000 wrote:And as Mandriva already showed, this can also be done with a carefully selected theme
so it integrates well with either desktop environment ...

+1

doktor5000 wrote:And as Mandriva already showed, this can also be done with a carefully selected theme
so it integrates well with either desktop environment ...

forcing one of the other sides to use the other one looks is not really good in the whole time

i mean if you are forcing GTK apps to use QT styles by (( gtk-qt-engine )) .... it will not help you the whole time to make QT styles fit GTK apps ......

e.g :- what will you do if you are useing bespin-style??!! .....

definetly you cant make GTK apps to be just like QT apps ...... because there is no any choice in (( gtk-qt-engine ))

that can force gtk apps to use bespin-style ..... and this situation you will face it again if you are using cde-style / motif-style / skulpture-style / even the ugly windows-style

===

beside ..... mandriva is using a GTK+ theme on kde .... while the whole time they say we will not support GNOME officially .....

at this point ... you will think this mean they will abandoned even GTK+ themes and will try to make a qt looks for Drakxtools

and after some silence moment .... they shocked you .... when you see they are useing GTK+ theme on kde by using GTK+alternative-style

at this point i dont mind to use a GTK+ themes on kde

but ..... why we cant have a suitable qt ui for drakxtools ...... is this really a hard work

===

people ... please give us some opportunity and help us ...... if you just seek a stable and lot helpfull distro ....... some of your distro fans seek the looks with those things

forcing one of the other sides to use the other one looks is not really good in the whole time

There was no forcing in that case and no use of gtk-qt-engine. (I suppose we are talking about Ia Ora theme, right?)
There were just two identical themes, one QT and one GTK.

You don't need gtk-qt-engine and you don't need to force anything.
Install gtk-qt-kcm (remove gtk-qt-engine) and install the QtCurve theme (kde4-style-qtcurve & qtcurve-gtk2).
Select them from KDE control center and tweak them as you like.

QtCurve is highly configurable and it can be made to look like (almost) anything you want.
You can go for extreme eye-candy or for a spartan look.
There are also a number of beautiful presets if you don't wanna loose time.
Whatever modifications done in QT are reflected in GTK.

You might say that QtCurve is not a mere theme, but rather an extremely useful customizing tool.

(If you want MCC to have the same look you'll have to replicate those settings as root)

I apologize to Konstantin for derailing the subject.

dubigrasu wrote:.......

and what is your explanation of this message if you hadn't install it yet



i will give you the answer ...... as you can see in the picture the first choice is inactive and you cant use it because there is no gtk-qt-engine

and this message mean .... you cant force GTK+ applications to use kde-styles' if you hadn't one of gtk-qt-kcm appearance choices is match

what you are now using it on QT ....

and a bit of advice .... dont even think to try do this thing .... because some of your GTK+ apps like firefox will end up to be stuck if you close it ..... and it will end up

eating your computer RAM unless you kill it from sysguard or using top from terminal

=====

here is some other idea you can change GTK+ applications appeariance without using gtk-qt-kcm and it will be by using gtk-chtheme

=====

(I suppose we are talking about Ia Ora theme, right?)

as i said before

you can use gtk-qt-kcm to make some of kde-styles to fit GTK+ applications ...... but what about the others

bespin-style / cde-style / motif-style / skulpture-style / even the ugly windows-style

=====

QtCurve is highly configurable and it can be made to look like (almost) anything you want.

well ..... i will give you a long long time .... just to make QTcurve to be like just bespin looks instead of its all Features

if you can make it like http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/forked+Metal?content=147673

What I'm saying to you is that you don't necessarily need to use the force (Luke) and gtk-qt-engine to obtain a visual consistency.
Sure, if you want to make GTK apps to look like every KDE theme available under the sun you can do it with gtk-qt-engine, which BTW is kinda of a ugly hack and also has some visual issues, as in it doesn't always work as it should.

For achieving this visual consistency you seem to pursue however you don't need to install gtk-qt-engine and force anything, gtk-qt-kcm is more than enough. (gtk-chtheme is kinda buggy and crappy)

what you are now using it on QT ....

and a bit of advice .... dont even think to try do this thing .... because some of your GTK+ apps like firefox will end up to be stuck if you close it ..... and it will end up

eating your computer RAM unless you kill it from sysguard or using top from terminal

I am using QtCurve and gtk-qt-kcm, what else?
The bug you are talking about is (or was) related to gtk-qt-engine, not gtk-qt-kcm.

BTW the screenshot you posted, yes, you can replicate it (not a perfect clone, no) from QtCurve settings.

almusalimalmusalimah wrote:but ..... why we cant have a suitable qt ui for drakxtools ...... is this really a hard work

===

people ... please give us some opportunity and help us ...... if you just seek a stable and lot helpfull distro ....... some of your distro fans seek the looks with those things

Im my humble opinion there are many other opportunities where help is eagerly needed, like documentation, quality assurance, packaging
which are vital parts needed for a distribution. If this work is not done, the distro won't survive. Please rethink about priorities.

And if something is done, it should be done properly. So no QT/Python rewrite, but as i've already written just an added QT frontend for drakxtools.

@dubigrasu: FWIW gtk-qt-engine is not really maintained, a better alternative is oxygen-gtk, which will be in the default install for Mageia 2.

doktor5000 wrote:
Im my humble opinion there are many other opportunities where help is eagerly needed, like documentation, quality assurance, packaging
which are vital parts needed for a distribution. If this work is not done, the distro won't survive. Please rethink about priorities.

yah... i am with you about that

but if some people like Mr.Sfiet_Konstantin jump to our ship and say i will do it

then we should encourage him ..... and help him to do that ..... and leave the main things to our distro developers and it's own groups

Well, we should encourage people to do things in a proper fashion.

And i've tried to help, by telling what should be done (which also reduces the work to be done,
an added QT frontend is much less work than a complete drakxtools rewrite, which has no obvious advantages ...)

@dubigrasu: FWIW gtk-qt-engine is not really maintained, a better alternative is oxygen-gtk, which will be in the default install for Mageia 2.

That's fine by me since I don't use gtk-qt-engine.
Oxygen-gtk indeed I think is the best solution overall for a default theme, nice looking and providing that needed visual consistency.
Is not my preferred theme though, (I think is too common) but as long QtCurve and gtk-qt-kcm are available, I'm a happy man.

I'm also a bit curious to know why Konstantin took the long road in his work.

dubigrasu wrote:Oxygen-gtk indeed I think is the best solution overall for a default theme

about the oxygen

i want to ask a favor from our distro developers

can they forked a color scheme from ia-ora-steel & ia-ora-night

because in this way ...... there is two advantage of this solution

1st / oxygen is much better look with it

2nd / mageia will have a unique look between all distros which using oxygen as a default theme

almusalimalmusalimah wrote:i want to ask a favor from our distro developers

can they forked a color scheme from ia-ora-steel & ia-ora-night

Please open a bug report for that (enhancement request) as it's unlikely
that any of the developers will read this here in the forums.

doktor5000 wrote:Please open a bug report for that (enhancement request) as it's unlikely
that any of the developers will read this here in the forums.

i filed a request there ... so

feel free to support it or be against it

https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3898

Sorry for not being here for some time, I have to prepare my exams (and am still in it).
Adding Qt frontend to current DrakX tools is a good idea, it can even be a goot enhancement, but the problem is that I do not have any knowledge in perl.
Rewriting is a huge task and can be sort of reinventing the wheel, but sometimes it worth it.

I have studied current DrakX code and feel that there are quite a lot of code that relies on old basis. The code is also quite hard to maintain, and there is no doc on it. My rewrite is for having tools that will be documented, be clean and heavily commented and lies on modern basis (DBus / PolicyKit). I also want to build a tool that is easy to extend. There were several ideas of having a tool for a certain need, and nobody to implement it, maybe because of perl, maybe because of hard work, but I hope that python is really easier to understand and to code with, so everybody can go and extend the new drakxtools. That's why I want this rewrite to be done.

I have seen your discussions on theme, and I think that it is not the point. Even if you can make an app having the same theme of the DE, it is not integration. Integration is having applications that are build on the same logic of the DE : integrating into their config center for example is an important point. I think that both frontends (Qt / GTK) as well as ncurses one are important.

Sorry for not being able to contribute on other points : I'm not a good packager. I tried, but I never understand how to package properly ... I can contribute for documentation, and I will if I found time, but what I really enjoy is coding.


And happy new year everybody

Well then, let's hope you'll have the strength to continue this work you started.
Good luck on your exams.