Let's reconsider some more applications installed by default

Jiri Eischmann eischmann at redhat.com
Mon Aug 31 12:04:52 UTC 2015


Michael Catanzaro píše v Pá 28. 08. 2015 v 14:07 -0500:
> From the latest revision of our PRD [1]:
> 
> "Fedora Workstation follows the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.
> These
> guidelines are mandatory for applications installed by default."
> 
> Currently we have applications that clearly do not follow these
> guidelines. Unless we plan to revisit this section of the PRD, we
> should remove them, or set a deadline for them to be improved.
> 
> * Devassistant. Needs an app menu, plus a serious sit-down with the
> GNOME designers. We want to make it easy to develop apps for Fedora,
> but not at the cost of leaving a bad quality impression.

Unfortunately I need to agree here. The DevAssistant team was downsized
recently. AFAIK they're focusing on CLI, GUI doesn't seem to get a lot
of attention and the current state of it is not really good.
But before we make any steps, we should talk to DA devels first.

> * Evolution: Needs a major redesign that is not going to happen.
> Geary
> is not yet a suitable replacement. Options: (1) Not install any email
> client, because most users will use webmail; we can feature Evolution
> in GNOME Software. (2) If we want to keep Evolution installed by
> default, it's time to require the maintainers to add an app menu.

If it's just matter of having app menu, we can add it, it's no-brainer.
I can add it to tasks for 3.20. On the other hand, some larger redesign
of Evolution is not likely unless some other party invests in
development.

> * Firefox. I see two options here: (1) replace it with Epiphany
> (FWIW,
> I think Epiphany has matured enough recently for this to be
> reasonable,
> but I am biased ;) (2) enable the GNOME extensions, mandate that they
> be updated in tandem with updates to Firefox in Fedora, and patch in
> an
> application menu. The extensions are good, and Mozilla is a
> reasonable
> upstream we can work with to get permission for this. The status quo
> should not be an option.

As much as I like Epiphany and the direction it's taking, I don't think
it's a good idea. Recently, I did a survey about what browsers Fedora
users use and the only relevant browsers are Firefox and
Chrome/Chromium (~95% of our user base together). It's never a good
idea to replace a popular app with something considerably less popular.

Removing the title bar is one of our development priorities now. There
are already patches submitted upstream, we just need to put it together
and make sure it works smoothly. It should work similarly to HTitle,
but it will be integral part of Firefox. I think this can definitely be
finished before F24.

We can also add some basic app menu like LibreOffice has. It will be a
duplication just like in LO, but if someone thinks helps integration
into our desktop, why not. It doesn't conflict with anything and is
easy to implement. I can again add it to our task list.

Only the GNOME theme for Firefox is not most likely doable. Mozilla is
trying to maintain a similar look across platforms, so I'm pretty sure
they will stand on Australis. And for us it'd be additional maintenance
burden. The theme breaks from time to time when you upgrade Firefox and
I don't really want to see security updates being stalled on a broken
theme. Based on feedback I collect from users, Australis is not a big
problem for them, the title bar gets much much more complains than the
theme.

> * setroubleshoot. This app is completely hopeless. SELinux issues are
> sufficiently rare nowadays that we simply do not need this anymore,
> although it would be ideal for ABRT to detect the issues and handle
> bug
> reports.

I agree, the UI is terrible, hopefully ABRT will be able to replace it
by F24.

> * Shotwell. Eventually we can replace it with GNOME Photos, but in
> the
> meantime, users can just install a photo management app if they want
> one. Also, I suspect Shotwell sends your password to Facebook without
> verifying its TLS certificate....

Won't GNOME Photos be ready by F24? Or we can use Gthumb which got a
GNOME 3 look recently. It's rather an advanced viewer than a photo
manager, but it can work for simple tasks. Who is more serious about
photos, doesn't use Shotwell anyway.

> * Transmission. Its only significant legal use is to download our
> competitor's products (Linux ISOs), hardly something we need to
> encourage. It's featured in GNOME Software already.

Agree, this doesn't have to be part of the default installation.

Jiri
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