KubuntuSystemTools

Revision 6 as of 2005-11-03 01:03:51

Summary

Improve existing Kubuntu system configuration tools and help create new ones.

Rationale

Breezy includes some new and improved system configuration tools over Hoary, significantly the Guidance suite. We should improve the user interfaces of these tools, ensure they are bug free and encourage new tools by helping upstream.

Use Cases

Bob wants to set a program to run at a given time, he finds he has to learn crontab format and emacs (or even worse, kcron) to be able to do so.

Impi wants a way for their users to set the network interface but find the current tool insufficient.

Alan wants to update his Apache configuration, but he doesn't want to learn all configuration settings of Apache.

Scope

Improve KNetworkConf and Guidance.

{{{XXX: JamesTroup: What (roughly) is 'Guidance'? What tools does it provide

and/or what parts of the system does it allow you to configure? Without that information, the usefulness of this scope is lessened, IMO}}}

Encourage more people to develop KDE administration utilities.

Implementation

KNetworkConf

KNetworkConf has some significant bugs in setting the gateway and default route. We need to fix these for dapper. The user interface of KNetworkconf does not fit on a 1024 pixel wide screen, this is also important to fix. We should use the 'Gnome Network Configuration Utility' frontend as an example for ideas on improving the KNetworkConf user interface.

Longer term Gnome System Tools may be moving to a dbus based separation using liboops which will require significant work for a KDE frontend. There is likely also to be a need for a KDE Network Manager frontend. Neither of these will be targets for dapper but at least one will probably be a target for dapper+1.

XXX: JamesTroup: surely this paragraph should be in Scope, rather than Implementation?

Guidance

The user interfaces for the Guidance tools are currently going through a usability review by openusability.org. We will work with the upstream Guidance developers to implement and add suggestions for usability.

The upstream Guidance developers are keen to add new tools to their suite. They are currently working on an X configuration tool. Other ideas include tools to manage crontabs, grub configuration editor, sudo configuration editor, keyboard selection and an Apache configuration tool (which could talk to a remote web server).

We will help the upstream developers in creating these tools and ensure they are well tested with Kubuntu.

{{{XXX: JamesTroup: call me harsh, but "we will help" people in creating something that are simply "ideas"

seems like a bit of a stretch as an "implementation plan"? Which, if any of these, are likely to happen for the Dapper timeframe? i.e. What actual implementation, if any, is going to happen?}}}

To encourage more people to develop KDE administration utilities, we should focus on the simple, but powerful development language for Kubuntu which Guidance provides with its KControl PyKDE integration.

XXX: JamesTroup: what does 'focus' mean/involve?

We should also provide some sample applications and documentation to encourage others in creating configuration tools including how to start working with Python and QT/KDE Bindings. There are already some good examples on the Internet (e.g. LUMA LDAP Browser http://luma.sourceforge.net/)

XXX: JamesTroup: 'should' or 'will'?

As the number of modules grow we will have to be careful to not crowd 'System Settings' with too many tools. The user interface for 'System Settings' may have to be changed to handle more modules, e.g. to a vertical lineup rather than a horizontal one, as already exists in the KDE 4 branch.

BoF agenda and discussion

XXX: JamesTroup: Any relevant information from this section that's not duplicated above, should be added somewhere appropriate and then the section should be removed, as it's confusing. It'll be available in the history for posterity.

grub editor. sudo editor. Make knetworkconf better (networkmanager frontend?).

ldap admin/browser (LUMA already in breezy/dapper)

improve guidance user interfaces

21:17 < _Sime> ... a decent way of selecting a keyboard and keyboard settings. (I want to choose my keyboard from a

_picture_, not guessing if I have US international or whatever)

21:18 < _Sime> understandable compose key support would be good to. Right now it is not obvious how you configure it.

21:16 < _Sime> a decent cron editor thingy would be nice, something that actually showed what was going to happen when...

KDE Apache Configuration Tool, it should provide remote uploads