Is anyone maintaining the Dilbert (comic) applet?

Asked by Dragan Tomas

I'm curious, I see the place-mate (a pretty much empty folder) for it in the applets folder under /usr/share/avant-window-navigator, yet it doesn't seem to me like there is a programmer assigned to this applet? Am I mistaking or is this applet being dropped altogether? I don't like how the comics! applet looks and feels, but the Dilbert applet is simple and effective, it does what it does with user friendly ease. It would be a pity to drop it. Could someone please pick up the ball?

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Awn Extras Edit question
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Mark Lee
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Best Mark Lee (malept) said :
#1

The applet does not currently have a maintainer, and no one in the current group of Awn Extras developers wants to become the maintainer. It's mostly because of two reasons:

1. Comics! has a semi-active maintainer
2. the comic applet code base is not scalable, as one needs to add a fair amount of screen-scraping python code in order to add a comic (as opposed to the text file-based method in Comics!).

If you think that Comics! needs usability improvements, feel free to file detailed bugs about them.

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Dragan Tomas (croatian-earthlink) said :
#2

Thank you for your response, but I just found my answer at https://blueprints.launchpad.net/awn-extras/+spec/remove-comic-applet. if the following doesn't belong in here please accept my sincere apologies.

  I lamented about this before, but this time it's getting ugly. It is a shame to remove an applet that worked just fine in favor of something that doesn't even have a working set of the same comics as the Dilbert applet had, even though it lists them (Peanuts, Wizard of ID). They simply don't show anything. Call it an alpha, beta or what ever you want, but the comics! applet should have had at least a fully working set of those comics before dropping the Dilbert applet. I applaud for the effort, but please get it fixed as soon as you can.

  And also, leaving it to the end user to figure out where to get the feeds for the comics in my opinion is a ridiculous idea. Do you think I'd be reading the Dilbert applet if I had any desire to do something like that? No! I read comics to relax and get a laugh or two or to simply ponder some of the underlining ironies of life from sometime subtle and sarcastic lines they give us. Comics are reflection of our daily lives and our society, politics, affairs... not the place where I want to search Google for some RSS feeds. The Dilbert applet came closest to the idea of a comic strip in your daily newspaper where all you had to do is turn the page and it's there. You always knew where it is at and how to find it, you didn't have to call your local newspaper to ask for a user manual or where to find it. Please give the priority to the "dumb user" factor (like myself) and not some "nerd feed" factor. Imagine giving a rattle to a baby with instructions on how to assemble it. If Linux is ever to become a mainstream, user friendly OS then please do away with the need to "assemble" the fun we want to have with it and rather serve us the that fun!

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Dragan Tomas (croatian-earthlink) said :
#3

Thanks Mark Lee, that solved my question.

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Mark Lee (malept) said :
#4

Technically speaking, the main reason why the comic applet not currently in the 0.4 betas (since the code base is not completely gone yet) is that no one's stepped up to port it to 0.4.

From a usability perspective, we encourage users (like yourself) to tell us when our applets' user interfaces aren't "intuitive" enough. This is why we use services like Launchpad, so that we can get constructive feedback.

You know, the Comics! applet has several comic feeds already built-in to it, just like the comic applet (although they are somewhat different sets of comics). We gladly accept "patches" so that more "dumb users" (as you put it - not my choice of words) can use Comics! without searching for comic feeds. I also filed a bug a few months ago in Comics! for screen-scraping support, but the maintainer is currently busy in real life (which is why I said "semi-active" in my previous comment), so it has not been worked on yet.

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Dragan Tomas (croatian-earthlink) said :
#5

Mark,

   Thank you, once again, for your insightful explanation of the issues surrounding these two applets. I perfectly understood your explanation the first time you gave it, it was very clear. Please consider my grievances as a form of an input I tried to give, no matter how improper or imperfect they may sound. My fault is for not recognizing the amount of work and sacrifice that goes into programming or maybe I'm just spoiled so much to think that programmers come dime-a-dozen with magic wands in their hands that make all the miracles happen out of thin air. Whatever the case may be... I'm the one with too much free time on my hand who should have learned long time ago how to code in Python instead of English as a second language :-) Who knows, maybe one day.

Cheers!

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pauljohn32 (pauljohn32) said :
#6

The only comic I can see in comics! is Dilbert. None of the others come through.

Here's the part I can't figure out, though. If I go into the comics! configure, I can add a feed and in the add panel, it does show the wizard of id comic of the day. However, upon closing the configure tool, the wizard comic won't show.

Here's the URL to see for yourself: http://www.gocomics.com/wizardofid/rss.pxml

In the previous comic applet, there was a handy thing where you could right click to choose the date of the comic to display and also it would prompt the applet to go and get it. Maybe comics! could benefit from a similar funciton

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Mark Lee (malept) said :
#7

Please file a bug if you think some functionality is missing from the Comics! applet.

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pauljohn32 (pauljohn32) said :
#8