FreeLists / openbeos / [openbeos] Preference Apps and Replicants

[Ben Allen <ben.allen@xxxxxxxxx>]

[I apologize ahead of time if this is more directed towards the pref.
apps team.  Their forum is a ghost town and I wanted to get some
feedback on something]

One of BeOS's best features was also one that hardly ever saw any use:
Replicants.  Replicants have been discussed several times before, and
I think the general consensus was that we should try to take advantage
of their power more often.  I think that replicants can add simplicity
and power to our preference apps, and help keep a more uniform
interface across the system.

Here is what I mean:  Currently, each preference app is a separate
application (network, screen prefs, mouse, etc).  Instead of having an
application for each preference app, each is designed as a replicable
BView.  Then, we only need one application (PreferenceViewer, or
whatever) that can retrieve the replicant, resize itself accordingly,
and appear to the user just as if there were separate apps for each.

This would also allow the user to (if they prefer) use a more "control
center" approach to preferences.  That is, one application that can
modify all system preferences with a multi-tabbed or similar
interface.  All the app would have to do is call the replicants as
needed and insert them into itself.

As far as other applications go, this approach would help app
developers with their preferences settings; they could use the
PreferenceViewer to design their own preference dialog.  It would also
make it easy to incorporate system preference dialogs in apps that
might need them (such as a copy of the screen prefrences app in a
developer IDE so that someone might easily switch resolutions and
color depths for testing).

Many of the preference apps are similar in size; if a default
preference app size and design standard was set by PreferenceViewer,
app developers might find it easier to make their apps visually
integrate with the OS. (hopefully that wouldn't be too limiting and
make some preference panels impossibly cluttered)

I'm sure somebody reading this is having their own ideas about using
replicants for system preference apps, and I am eager to hear your
ideas.  This is likely not an R1 thing (except maybe on a basic
level), but I thought I would mention it in case someone else was
thinking the same thing.

-Ben