I've been considering the effort that RedHat is putting
into GUI-based configuration utilities, and the process
could be considerably streamlined if there were some way
of writing just one configuration utility and having it
understand all the configuration files. This would be, in
effect, a configuration browser. How to facilitiate this
though...
It certainly cannot be one huge program that takes every
single configuration file in the UNIXish world into
account within the actual code. And on the other hand we
cannot help but piss of the majority of old school,
hard-corps, command-line savants if we alter the UNIX
configuration concept so much that it only makes sense
from the GUI...
So how about a config-file markup language, a sort of
CFML? To not interfere with the original config file
format, it could exist only in extra comment lines within
the config file itself, and nothing would really be
changed. Just a few additional, otherwise ignored lines
prefacing each system-read entry. These mark-ups would
simply tell the configuration browser how to display its
data, what type of selections/postions/buttons/sliders to
use for what, etc, and perhaps even guide it to a
secondary
comment/help/explanation-for-people-like-my-mother file
that would, to the user, be an integrated help system
pertaining to whatever they are configuring.
How many times have newer users (such as myself) toyed
with config settings merely to see what they do and if we
could actually find what we were looking for? Yes, the
settings are well-documented in comment lines within the
config files themselves -- which is great for people who
know where the config files live and happen to know enough
about command-line administration to not be afraid of
playing around in that dark and creepy world -- but not
very useful for your average "I want to click this and
have it do what its supposed to do" user.
These non-command-line users are exactly who RedHat (and
more broadly, the open-source community as a whole) must
target and cater to if they wish to really make any
serious attempts to win over the public. Nobody wants to
learn advanced Linux admin skills just so they can buy
Tribes2 for $30 and not buy WinXP for $200. They want to
read a little advice pop-up, see that some config setting
has "(recommended)" written beside it, click those, and
have things happen as they are supposed to, and usually
do, happen in the Windows world.
That's where that $200 goes in the minds of the WinXP user
who went to the trouble to compare RedHat and WinXP and
chose WinXP because they didn't want to have to learn
anything new or join a discussion group or a LUG or
experience the support of the Linux community first-hand.
One-click functionality. We have got to catch up there.
Any further ideas or comments? I think it is simply
inefficient to be developing a new configuration
application every time you want to GUI-ize some deeply
system-related behaviour. This is, without any doubt,
exactly where Windows and OSX are kicking RedHat squarely
in the ass with the average user... which sucks... because
people like me want to see RedHat become the norm for home
desktops so we can share all the cool free stuff with our
friends and spur better and broader game development.
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