keyfile-settings can't be disable

Submitted by Yves-Alexis Perez

Assigned to Matthew Brush @matt

Link to original bug (#11662)

Description

It seems that --enable-keyfile-settings can't be disabled. Either it's 'yes' or it's 'default' but it can't be set to 'no' to disable gsettings dependency altogether.

This is on 0.4.0.

Version: Unspecified

Matthew Brush @matt said:

GSettings dependency is not optional, only whether to use the keyfile backend or to use the DBus backend. It's possible the configure.ac is not correct though, my Autofu is weak.

Yves-Alexis Perez said:

(In reply to Matthew Brush from comment 1)

GSettings dependency is not optional, only whether to use the keyfile backend or to use the DBus backend. It's possible the configure.ac is not correct though, my Autofu is weak.

Then I'm a bit unsure about what are the keyfile and dbus backends :) But in any case, I'm a bit disappointed with the enforced Gsettings stuff (especially since the rest of Xfce uses xfconf).

Matthew Brush @matt said:

(In reply to Yves-Alexis Perez from comment 2)

(In reply to Matthew Brush from comment 1)

GSettings dependency is not optional, only whether to use the keyfile backend or to use the DBus backend. It's possible the configure.ac is not correct though, my Autofu is weak.

Then I'm a bit unsure about what are the keyfile and dbus backends :) But in any case, I'm a bit disappointed with the enforced Gsettings stuff (especially since the rest of Xfce uses xfconf).

The keyfile backend basically makes it like the previous version using text file in your home dir, except it's more robust and easier to sync changes. The DBus backend is basically like an improved version of Xfconf, which was written in a time when GSettings didn't exist and builtin into GIO, meaning you have it if you can run Mousepad anyway.

Yves-Alexis Perez said:

(In reply to Matthew Brush from comment 3)

The keyfile backend basically makes it like the previous version using text file in your home dir, except it's more robust and easier to sync changes. The DBus backend is basically like an improved version of Xfconf, which was written in a time when GSettings didn't exist and builtin into GIO, meaning you have it if you can run Mousepad anyway.

Maybe, and maybe it's because of Debian specific stuff, but adding gsettings in the loop brings dconf as dependency.

Matthew Brush @matt said:

(In reply to Yves-Alexis Perez from comment 4)

(In reply to Matthew Brush from comment 3)

The keyfile backend basically makes it like the previous version using text file in your home dir, except it's more robust and easier to sync changes. The DBus backend is basically like an improved version of Xfconf, which was written in a time when GSettings didn't exist and builtin into GIO, meaning you have it if you can run Mousepad anyway.

Maybe, and maybe it's because of Debian specific stuff, but adding gsettings in the loop brings dconf as dependency.

Mousepad uses the gsettings*.[ch] stuff here: https://git.gnome.org/browse/glib/tree/gio

I checked to make sure it was available in GLib versions allowed for Xfce 4.12 applications. I'm not sure about how it is packaged though, maybe try --no-install-recommends option to apt-get?

Yves-Alexis Perez said:

(In reply to Matthew Brush from comment 5)

(In reply to Yves-Alexis Perez from comment 4)

(In reply to Matthew Brush from comment 3)

The keyfile backend basically makes it like the previous version using text file in your home dir, except it's more robust and easier to sync changes. The DBus backend is basically like an improved version of Xfconf, which was written in a time when GSettings didn't exist and builtin into GIO, meaning you have it if you can run Mousepad anyway.

Maybe, and maybe it's because of Debian specific stuff, but adding gsettings in the loop brings dconf as dependency.

Mousepad uses the gsettings*.[ch] stuff here: https://git.gnome.org/browse/glib/tree/gio

I checked to make sure it was available in GLib versions allowed for Xfce 4.12 applications. I'm not sure about how it is packaged though, maybe try --no-install-recommends option to apt-get?

The dependencies are added at build time (I'm the debian maintainer) because a gsettings schema is installed, and thus a gsettings backend is needed. It seems the only gsettings backend is dconf.

Matthew Brush @matt said:

(In reply to Yves-Alexis Perez from comment 6)

The dependencies are added at build time (I'm the debian maintainer) because a gsettings schema is installed, and thus a gsettings backend is needed. It seems the only gsettings backend is dconf.

I don't know too much about packaging, but I specifically added special code paths to support the builtin keyfile backend so it could be freestanding:

https://git.gnome.org/browse/glib/tree/gio/gkeyfilesettingsbackend.c

This issue is probably obsolete, although it seems to be related to a recent comment.

Closing since the actual Issue here is invalid; setting --eanble-keyfile-settings will never disable GSettings altogether as explained above. If we want to remove GSettings or work to remove DBus dependency that can be done as a separate Issue/MR.

closed