Dran and Drop in Scale

[Who]

This has been implemented in Beryl recently - it is something people have wanted in Compiz since about day 7 of it's existence!

I think this is the relevant changelog from Beryl's trac page.

http://bugs.beryl-project.org/trac/changeset/1449

Firstly - this didn't come from Compiz, right? (the credit to David Revemen is for the second point only, I think...)

Secondy - can it be implemented in Compiz? I would love it!

(while we're on the subject of scale, did David refuse some patches to terminate scale with the hot corners as well as activate it, or did they never happen?)

[nzjrs]

Yep, from looking at the Compiz changelogs it seems to have come from david;

this (http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=xorg/app/compiz.git;a=commitdiff;h=6e3969fb273bcfeee30c8191 53eb1e343780d4c4) + this (http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=xorg/app/compiz.git;a=commitdiff;h=043382fa80eb6fcdc3fbdabb b549cad341816601) + this (http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=xorg/app/compiz.git;a=commitdiff;h=12bffde2f6988bc2154bfc5e f049fbbd675a874f) = this (http://bugs.beryl-project.org/trac/changeset/1449)

For a while there I thought that the Beryl people might have actually contributed something worthwhile back upstream

maybe next time....... :wink:

[mikedee]

No, this is typical beryl style, take features as quick as possible from Compiz and then report them on the blog as their own.

Currently most of the beryl development seems to be centred around 2 things...

1. Merge as much stuff back from Compiz as possible.
2. Create the craziest configuration system anyone has ever seem.

Point 2 deserves some explanation for the non-code-watchers here.

Initially Compiz was designed so that settings backends were enabled through plugins. The initial csm changes in beryl (part of the reasons for the fork) broke this so there would only be one way to configure the settings (and gconf was removed forever - harrah!)....

As time went on, csm (then bsm) was further and further integrated into the core so eventually it was renamed settings. Now someone had the great idea that it should be possible to alter the settings via python bindings. They then started the mamoth effort of writing libberyl settings (>3000 lines in total), converting the settings plugin to use it.

Now their aim is to be included in Ubuntu. As everyone knows Ubuntu is a Gnome based distro so obviously they will want to configure Compiz with gconf.... Oops... Now beryl have a few options, they can go back to the gconf plugin (it would have been easy to bring back), or they can choose to continue with libberyl settings.

NOW libberylsettings is being heavilly rewritten so that it can support plugins (!), there will be a bsm settings-library-plugin and a gconf settings-library-plugin.

No doubt once this is finished there wil lbe huge cheers that beryl supports different configuration backends through a cool plugin system. Everyone will be impressed with the leet coding skillz of Quinn and co as the repeatedly fix bugs in the settings system.

Look closely at the berly blog post, under bug fixes they have "Fix crashes with libberylsettings", a few lines down is "# Fixed segfaults in libberylsettings". Also I love the sheepish quote from maniac at the bottom "Just for completeness: The DnD support in scale also was a change ported from Compiz … so no need to give it upstream". Should have really been mentioned in the original release, instead they would have people believe they did it.

Everything they are doing with their thousands of lines of buggy code is already possible in Compiz, the changes required around 500 lines of code and are much more maintainable and instantly work with any dbus compatable language (not just python)

[RYX]

Mikedee, may I note that there is no reason for such extensive off-topic comments about the beryl-devs here. They had enough bad luck when they lost all their bugs and forum-databases (if they really lost and not dumped it).

:wink:

[mikedee]

They had enough bad luck when they lost all their bugs and forum-databases (if they really lost and not dumped it).

:D

I thought people would think I was being a nut job if I said that.... Glad YOU said it not me ;) Things just dont quite add up there...

Either way, yes they have had bad luck, but most of it is their own fault anyway, they were full of themselves when they announced the split, unfortunatly for them they do not have the skills to back up their claims...

I think al lof this is on topic, as Who was obviously under the misconception that beryl does any sort of improvements on the code. I was just pointing out with factual examples rather that rhetoric exactly what they ARE doing (none of which has anything to do with what the community wants).

[Who]

No, this is typical beryl style, take features as quick as possible from Compiz and then report them on the blog as their own.

Currently most of the beryl development seems to be centred around 2 things...

1. Merge as much stuff back from Compiz as possible.
2. Create the craziest configuration system anyone has ever seem.

Also I love the sheepish quote from maniac at the bottom "Just for completeness: The DnD support in scale also was a change ported from Compiz … so no need to give it upstream". Should have really been mentioned in the original release, instead they would have people believe they did it.


I was watching the community much more closely when the csm changes were made (just after I'd written a whole tutorial doing stuff with gconf :S!) - seems I'm not paying enough attention any more - sorry for misattributing this - at least my question resulted in maniac explaining that it was from upstream on the beryl blog

I can't have been having a good night: I looked at the git changelog but missed the blatant description!?! Generaly david is good now about communicating with developers, but generally the communication with the users/interested parties isn't so strong (probably because this is a more traditionally run project that is expected to be packaged by distros, not installed by users). I think the new community portal and this forum should help a lot. I will try to reinstate compiz.blogspot.com - I'm fine to update it for half the year but uni termtime is very busy...perhaps there is a better, more colaborative solution like the beryl blog?

[imnotpc]

The 3 most popular CMSs in our poll all have blog modules so that shouldn't be an issue moving forward...