Gnome Dependency Change/Removal

Asked by rich scadding

Is it possible to have Terminator work with no Gnome dependencies at all? For example to make it slimmer using alternatives on distros which use lightweight Window Managers such as Fluxbox, OpenBox etc.

This question comes from discussion regarding Terminator 956 on #! Crunchbang where errors were reported related to the missing deskbar-applet.
CODE: from window.py:

try:
    import deskbar.core.keybinder as bindkey
except ImportError:
    err('Unable to find python bindings for deskbar, "hide_window" is not' \
            'available.')

When deskbar-applet and all its Gnome dependencies are installed, the error disappears, so it's not technically a bug, but pulls in a lot of baggage for non-Gnome desktops.
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/62519/#p62519

Thanks in advance for any feedback:

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Chris Jones (cmsj) said :
#1

Terminator does work find without the deskbar package installed, the only feature that is dependent on that is the <ctrl><alt><shift>a hotkey to make the whole window appear/disappear. The "dependency" is deliberately soft, and I would suggest that distro packages not depend on python-deskbar, but use the equivalent of debian's Recommends/Suggests fields.

Having said that, if there is a better way of registering a global hotkey, I will gladly switch to it, and if there are any other hard GNOME dependencies I will work hard to make them soft (e.g. support for GNOME session will reappear before 1.0, but like in 0.14 it will be soft).

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rich scadding (richs-lxh-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount) said :
#2

Hi Chris, thanks for the quick reply, much appreciated.

When deskbar-applet isn't installed, this error from window.py appears:

try:
    import deskbar.core.keybinder as bindkey
except ImportError:
    err('Unable to find python bindings for deskbar, "hide_window" is not' \
            'available.')

However Terminator does continue to work ok.

You said:
""............. and I would suggest that distro packages not depend on python-deskbar, but use the equivalent of debian's Recommends/Suggests fields.""
And:
""if there is a better way of registering a global hotkey, I will gladly switch to it,""

So we need to look for Debian alternatives to packages depending on python-deskbar and a better way of registering a global hotkey.

I'm sure your answer will be read by quite a few people who do not use Gnome and are also looking for an alternative way to install a fully functional Terminator without the Gnome deps.

Thanks

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corenominal (corenominal) said :
#3

I have absolutely no clue about this, so feel free to ignore, but would 'python-keybinder' be of any use as an alternative? It is packaged and available for Debian and Ubuntu. See: http://kaizer.se/wiki/python-keybinder/

> This module originates in Tomboy and has been widely reused
> without having a separate release. This package has taken
> the python bindings for Tomboy's keybinder from the
> Deskbar Applet project, and broken it out to be a standalone module.

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rich scadding (richs-lxh-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount) said :
#4

I have installed python-keybinder and have been looking through the scripts in /terminatorlib but my (seriously lacking) knowledge of python has left me not knowing where to start.

@Chris - What would have to be changed for the python-keybinder module to be imported instead of "import deskbar.core.keybinder as bindkey" in /window.py (if that's where the call needs to be made.

Or where would one set the default global keybind module for Terminator?

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Chris Jones (cmsj) said :
#5

Philip: Fantastic find, thanks very much. That's exactly the same keybinding code, but bundled on its own instead of part of deskbar/tomboy. I've converted trunk to using that and updated the debian/control file to Recommends on python-keybinder instead of deskbar-applet. This is revision 962.

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rich scadding (richs-lxh-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount) said :
#6

Thanks Chris. For the great response time and a wicked terminal. You've just got an Xfce4-terminal to Terminator convert!! ;-)

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