Comments on: Compiz: The Ultimate in Useless Eyecandy?

By: SmSpillaz

SmSpillaz — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:40:00 +0000

That, and merging plugins becomes a pain in the arse when it comes to expandability. Currently we have 4 switchers. That number could possible expand to 10. Merging the plugins together proposes two fundamental problems:
- New 'modes' added to a plugin would have to be approved by the main developer of that plugin, and that would be a pain
- The plugins get ridiculously large. Have a look at the animation plugin for example, there are like 25 different animations using all sorts of different backends in the animation plugin.

The real solution here is to continue the work done on so-called library plugins (cube & scale) and have other plugins build upon those, so you have one switcher plugin, but shift and ring build upon it's functionality, kind of like plugin-plugins.

It won't really be possible until Compiz Object Framework gets merged in, which will not be soon.

By: eternicode

eternicode — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:49:00 +0000

gijsterbeek, I like the idea of merging plugins. Especially for the switcher plugin, it’s just kinda ridiculous to have three different versions when we could merge the functionality into sets of options for a single plugin.

Unfortunately, this would involve getting the developers to agree to merge their “babies” together and…well…that might not go over too well

By: gijsterbeek

gijsterbeek — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:23:00 +0000

See http://digg.com/linux_unix/Compiz_The_Ultimate_in_Useless_Eyecandy

for my comment. (gijsterbeek). I think a lot of plugins could be merged, because they address the same function through different interfaces.

There is not much difference between Expo, Wall, Plane and Cube. They all offer a spatial representation of multiple desktops. So why not merge them into a ‘Multiple Desktop’ plugin?

Same goes for the three (!) switchers. Just make it one plugin: Switcher…