The incomplete desktop
The Gnome desktop has for a long time, been a collection of related projects. The official distribution of Gnome generally includes only those projects that have been declared “a part of the Gnome desktop” – anything that fits well and complies (loosely) with the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines (HIG).
It’s a shame in many ways because it leaves the Gnome desktop feeling incomplete. Recently I’ve been thinking long and hard about the Gnome control panel applets (cutely abbreviated “capplets”) and how best to tackle them. Generally, I’ve found them to be a bit fragmented, with often related options in totally different capplets or with seemingly vital options missing entirely.
That’s not to say there’s a lack of good software and developers out there making such programs for Gnome, but unfortunately they appear either unwilling or unable to integrate this work in to the Gnome desktop itself.
Case in point: Today I found out about sysinfo, an application for displaying useful system information in a user friendly way and is miles better than the standard “Device Manager” capplet. It’s written for Gnome in GTK+, so in theory, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be a part of the Gnome desktop. It would require fairly minor changes to integrate it in to the Gnome desktop as a control panel applet so why not?
Sysinfo isn’t alone, there is a multitude of applications and especially applets that provide much needed functionality and yet hasn’t been included in the Gnome desktop. All that would be required is someone from Gnome to contact these developers and say “Hey, you’ve got a pretty good thing going there, with a few small changes/additions this’d fit great in to the Gnome desktop.”
If I was approached by a seasoned Gnome-er and asked to incorporate my application in to Gnome, I’d leap at the chance. Especially if it’d fill a whole and make the Gnome desktop just that little more complete.
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