Re: system-config-schedule

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Hi there Gaute (and of course the people on this list),

I have checked out the glade-file a bit and have two big remarks:

* You should avoid the usage of the GtkFixed widget. It will make your
application unresizable :(

* You might also want to read the Human Interface Guidelines, for UI
design you did some very common mistakes which actually are a standard
in the current version of the GNOME HIG.


I have attached a glade file. It uses a layout that looks a lot like the
other ^system-config-.*$ tools included with Fedora. It should be HIG
compliant (but of somebody finds quirks or mistakes, please do fix or
report it).

I really do suggest that you use or this GUI or create a new one. You
GUI really is to difficult to understand. I do understand how you try to
ease it for the user, but it's the way the crontab is represented to the
user that will make the difference between a tool that will be used, or
a tool that will be ignored.

In the TreeView I would put a minimum of columns. For example the
frequency and the command. Perhaps (if possible) also a title that
actually has no real meaning for the system. Maybe by adding it as a
comment to the actual crontab-record?

+-----------------+-------------------+----------------------------+
| Title           | Frequency         | Command                    |
+-----------------+-------------------+----------------------------+
| Backup files    | Every day         | /opt/bin/mybackup.pl       |
| Restart webserv | * 1 * * *         | /opt/bin/restartapache.pl  |
+-----------------+-------------------+----------------------------+

If the frequency is 'easy' then the "Basic" in the in add_window could
be used. If that frequency is 'advanced' then the advanced tab should be
used and the basic tab not selected by default.

Updating and creating entries will reuse the same GUI, of course:
add_window.

You will have three important buttons:

Add, Properties and Delete

- Properties will show the add_window for the selected record.
- Add will show the add_window for creating a new record
- Delete will remove the selected record

Ok means OK. It does not mean: OK in memory but you will have to restart
the crontab or import the memory to the crontab or whatever. No, OK is
OK. OK means that the user agrees that the crontab is going to be set.
Period. Cancel means cancel all changes in this window.

So there is only one window that can 'set' the crontab: add_window. And
there should not be a refresh-button for this is not needed (unless,
perhaps, an external application can change the crontab while
system-config-schedule is working with the crontab. Then still this
should not matter to much, as the tool should update record per record
and should not try to set the entire crontab on every change. Unless of
course there is no other way).

I am planning to, by using your current code as sample, implement the
GUI that I created, some day. Unless of course you are planning to
recode your implementation to this GUI or significantly improve and
HIGify your GUI.

I now feel the need for a system-config-schedule or system-config-cron
(I too prefer system-config-schedule, so lets go for that name).

So .. Lets create this tool.. 

Btw. I have been working on a gtk-sharp system-config-dhcp tool. I have
understood that there will be no other programming language than python
supported for these tools, so while that project was fun for learning,
it kinda stopped. Still I also feel the need for a dhcp-config tool.

If people are interested to help me and join, I am planning to start
creating such a tool (also, some day). Note, however, that the
configuration for a dhcp-server ain't easy to GUImatically create
(recursive structures and stuff like that).





On Sat, 2004-06-05 at 19:30 +0200, Gaute Hope wrote:
> Goodday
> 
> I have modified the cronconf tool I have spoken of before to handle 'at'
> aswell. Not very feature rich yet, but it supports both simple and
> advanced mode, though there is no big diffrence yet.
> 
> It is located at:
> http://gaute.eu.org/stasj/cronconf/
> 
> I changed the name from system-config-cron or cronconf to
> system-config-schedule, which i found most descriptive, couldn't come up
> with anything else..
> 
> Any comments?
> 
> -gaute
-- 
Philip Van Hoof, Software Developer @ Cronos
home: me at freax dot org
work: Philip dot VanHoof at cronos dot be
http://www.freax.be, http://www.freax.eu.org

Attachment: system-config-schedule.glade.gz
Description: GNU Zip compressed data

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