Quick Jackfield update
Not much news on Jackfield at the moment, because I’ve been highly tied up with Jokosher and a few other things, but I thought I ought to note that I’m aware that people want to see it. I was actually quite surprised; most people who expressed a preference either by mail or by comment as to what they’d like to see me talk about at SkyCon said Jackfield. At the moment, I’m trying to get it to work across different D-Bus versions, which is fiddly and awkward.
I’ve also been nudged about integrating it with Beryl. I like the idea of this, but I can’t do that work; I don’t have accelerated 3D, so no compiz or beryl for me. If someone else wants to look at that I’d be quite happy to talk about how I see the integration working, but making Jackfield operate properly with software I don’t have isn’t all that high on my priority list :-)
I am also eager to see Jackfield running. However I propose not to try to support different DBUS versions because DBUS 1.0 has been released and from that version on the API is stable - and probably every distribution is already working on updating to it. So at the time Jackfield is ready DBUS-1.0 will be in distros as well.
77 minutes later
I could see adding Beryl support later (if you find someone willing to do it). I think the important thing right now is just getting Jackfield out, though.
My most wanted feature is Yahoo Widgets support.
13 hours later
I’m very interested in seeing jackfield work, and possibly being integrated in Beryl as well. Unfortunately I am not very python-aware, but when I can get a working jackfield in my ubuntu, I’ll try to see what can be done with beryl.
Keep up the good work !
3 days later
I am also interested in seeing this work with Beryl. I would like to see it run on Ubuntu, and I agree with Razor, that my most wanted feature is Yahoo widgets as well. I hope it will be packaged soon as a .deb file so it is easy to install with Ubuntu. (That is what I am running) A .rpm would also be nice for my friends who are running SuSE.
3 days later
I am also interested in seeing Jackfield at work. Beryl-integration would be a great benefit, too.
Btw. is there any relationship with http://www.cocotron.org/ ?
5 days later
My girlfriend just got a Mac and I wasn’t into widgets until I saw it on her machine. I would love to see beryl integration but I understand you have other priorities.
I do hope someone picks it up and does the integration.
9 days later
Are there any new screenshots of Jackfield? How close are we to seeing a release that runs on Ubuntu? (somewhat easily)
2 weeks later
Maybe you could just integrate with kiba-dock. It is under the Beryl’s unsupported section at this time. (It is currently under development, although it is fully functional now.) Docks, Widgets, and Sidebars are somewhat related anyway.
http://forum.beryl-project.org/viewforum.php?f=38
http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Kiba-dock
http://www.kiba-dock.org/
3 weeks later
Maybe you could just integrate with kiba-dock. It is under the Beryl’s unsupported section at this time. (It is currently under development, although it is fully functional now.) Docks, Widgets, and Sidebars are somewhat related anyway.
http://forum.beryl-project.org/viewforum.php?f=38
http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Kiba-dock
http://www.kiba-dock.org/
3 weeks later
I successfuly got Jackfield running under Ubuntu 6.06 quite quickly, and have some widgets running. I have some problems with one of the widgets not resizing correctly, but that’s to be expected at this stage, I’m sure. I, too, may look into beryl integration, as that would be awesome. Thanks for your awesome work!
3 weeks later
I think it should kept it separate from Beryl and Compiz. If you code Jackfield using gtk/cairo with alpha settings then these window managers will use them anyway.
3 weeks later
Sorry for the double post above. I didn’t think the first one took…
Cole:
I think everyone has a right to their opinion, but I think your a bit too late. A plugin is going to be developed for these projects, and if there ever is a merger in the code of Jackfield, Screenlets, Gnome Desklets, and Beryl/Compiz as being discussed by the BIG DOGS already… We are going to have one very awesome widget engine available for Beryl/Compiz and more importantly, Linux. That does not mean that you need to use the plugin. You can choose not to use this feature. Myself… I hope they do integrate these projects as it would make Linux king of the widgets. Good timing too with the launch of Vista just around the corner. Does a plugin mean that you can not run these applications as stand-alone applications? I don’t know, but I would assume that they would have free-standing core applications that were not installed via a Compiz/Beryl plugin, however these are just my opinions, ideas, and info from what I have read in the forums… As for the final decisions, well… That is up to the authors, developers, and such. For more information… Look here:
http://forum.beryl-project.org/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=2352&p=14210#p14210
Thanks,
3 weeks later
Broken:
I guess his opinion would have been deemed too late at any point. Would you have taken notice if it was posted any earlier? I somehow doubt it. He does have a valid point, integration is not always the best thing. I think Cole was coming from the angle that alpha etc. can be automatically used if the window manager (Compiz/Beryl) supports it, but only if you code it in the right way. Your opinion appears to be a bit more hardwired into Beryl, though I could have misinterpreted it.
How do you see jackfield, integrated as a plugin working exactly?
4 weeks later
Martha,
“I guess his opinion would have been deemed too late at any point. Would you have taken notice if it was posted any earlier? I somehow doubt it.”
It would have been noticed, but I am not the developer(s), so all I have is just an opinion on what I would like to see happen, but since it is in fact already in the works, well, then his/her post is in fact a bit late. It’s still a worth opinion, don’t get me wrong. I was just stating that it is already being done by some developers as a fact, because it is already being worked on by QuinnStorm from Beryl and there is also a similar plugin available for Compiz… I don’t know if Jackfield, Desklets, Screenlets, and the others will integrate for sure, but they have been talking and it would make one heck of a widgets, desklets, sidebar engine available for Linux.
“How do you see jackfield, integrated as a plugin working exactly?”
Just that… As a plugin for a stand-alone application. It doesn’t have to be chosen if you do not like it. It is just a plugin. If you want to use it, you can. If not, that’s your choice. It’s all about options, not limitations.
4 weeks later
Gothca, thank you for the reply.
4 weeks later
No problem. Sorry if I came across as rude, as that was never my intention. Actually, I am really a nice person. ;- } However, that is only my opinion and others may disagree. LOL
4 weeks later
Just wanted to say that Jackfield looks promising. I tried running a Dashboard widget, and also an Opera widget (they have similar API’s), and it seem like you’re almost there! I’m looking into why XMLHttpRequest is not working - havent worked with python in a while though :)
You might also be interested in looking at the W3C Widget Spec working draft here http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets/.
Thanks for building this - with an implementation of the widget.system function, there’s some interesting cross platform application development possibilities.
14 weeks later
daaku: yeah, I don’t know why XMLHttpRequest doesn’t work either. It used to! The problem is not Python; it’s being blocked by Firefox. Look in the custom mozilla profile that Jackfield supplies; I must have set some things wrong (or not set them at all) in prefs.js, but I don’t know which ones.
14 weeks later