Re: [ros-kernel] The Explorer replacement we need.

[Steven E. <ste...@ya...>]

Let me Preface this by saying that I am working on
adapting geoShell R4 for mingw and testing
geoShell/WinCVS under WINE to make sure the wine
shell32 and shlwapi are to the point that we will be
able to use them when we have windowing. Mingw lacks a
shlwapi.h so I have had to hack the wine one for use
with mingw, also there a few definitions missing from
winuser that I have had to adapt from MS_VC/WINE. Also
wine has some bugs with its CxxFrameHandler so it
looks like I am going to be writing a set of tests
before I can test geoShell and Wincvs under
WINE/linux.

Dont get me wrong I am not oposed to a project to
rewrite explorer.exe. I only started on this because 

1. It doesnt link to msvcp60.dll like litestep. The
msvcp* dlls contains 2000+ functions. I am not
rewriting this anytime soon. 

2. geoShell is a lot simpler and a much tigher
community
with people that are interest in working with us on
R4.
They have already commited a few patches from me.

3. Something will need to be implemented and I wanted
to play with gcc 3.1 and learn a little C++ =)

4. After only 1 day of work I can now compile 50% of
geoShell under mingw/gcc 3.1. I was working on
litestep I would be banging my head in to the wall
right now. 


> well, from what I could see, it looks like a good
> deal of functions has 
> already been implemented. Won't run explorer, maybe

I think depending on your wine configuration you can
run explorer if you setup a desktop in your
.wine/config. I dont know if this is using any windows
dlls or all native wine so's.
 
> but was is usable? would you use it? I downloaded it
> and gave it a try, and 
> my answer is ...

I was using it....the only real problem I had was the
lack of Desktop Icons. Last night though a found a
program that fixes that...geoDesk =)
 
> ... nope, geoshell is not ready for "prime time". It
> didn't even *work* for 
> me. Some menus didn't open, some plugins behaved
> odd, some menus flickered. 
> A disappointment

The only thig left that really bothers me is so bugs
in minamizing the geobars.

> Not to speak of the (un)usability. Editing the bars
> is a pain: a lot of 
> mouse clicking, menu hunting and, I'm afraid,
> registry editing. My 
> favorite: the surprise pop-up menu that asks you
> after which element to 
> insert a new one. Compare this hell to the
> outrageous ease of customization 
> of Office toolbars

I agree adding stuff to the bars could be better... I
think the size of the default geObar doesnt help to
much.

> Another counter-intuitive aspect is the terminology.
> First of all: the 
> plugins are identified by name (geOTasks, geOTray,
> etc.), rather than by 
> function ("Task bar", "System tray", etc.). Then:
> why "plugins"? they're 
> more "panels" to me. A bar's menu (a bad idea in
> itself) should say 
> "Insert >", and pop-up a list of "Separator",
> "Spacer", <separator>, "Task 
> bar", "System tray", etc. instead of a "Load plugin"
> that pops up a list of 
> unintellegible nicknames

Come on dude how hard is it to rename the resources?
 
> (geOShell's floating bars design is the ass-kicker.
> No doubt)

=)

> Other things I feel a need for: a "read-only"
> function to lock bars and 
> panels, to avoid modifying or moving them without
> being able to undo (a 
> must for beginners - see the infamous "half my
> screen is gray" problem), 
> "smart menus", i.e. hide rarely used items (you
> think it's for beginners 
> only? just wait until your Programs menu doesn't fit
> the screen anymore), 
> and a floating semitransparent recycle bin in the
> lower right corner, of course

I dont see why we couldnt implement this if we adopt
R4. they are working on R6 but are willing to help us
if we do future development on R4 for ReactOS.

Thanks
Steven

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