wine's very own control panel applets?

Hey folks
I was thinking of writing some substitutes/stubs for the windows .CPL files.

I migrated to using linux as a desktop fairly recently /used it for servers 
for a while, though/. Adapting to the linux equivalents of the programs I 
use, using wine for the rest etc.
Whilst "reinventing" the software base,I  had an annoyingly  familiar *close 
encounter* with a program which /both windows and wine/ gives out a message 
basically saying in short: "For this program to run, the decimal should 
be '.' and the negative sign - '-'." That's cuz the locale /Bulgarian/ uses 
the ',' as the default decimal /both win and wine/.

The solutions, of course, are the 3 obvious ones - copy intl.cpl from a 
working windows, go "regedit" on the subject, open the regs with a text 
editor. Both 3 are not very appealing (notably the first one; the 2nd and 3rd 
are rather annoying /if you haven't tampered with the registry too much/, but 
I consider the first one a real no-go.). So I decided to write something to 
replace the functions of intl.cpl, and called it "winelocalesetup".

However, this got me thinking further - what if that program instead of 
popping up that message, decided to execute,say, "control.exe intl.cpl", to 
save me some of the trouble? And didn't issue any warning, but instead 
crashed in midst of working with it if the decimal wasn't changed (which 
would normally be the case. It's an accounting program, so, the decimal is 
indeed important...) 

Anywho, I was thinking of creating a bunch of CPLs which mimic their windows 
counterparts in their names. However, the applet itself wouldn't do much - it 
would basically contain a somewhat appropriate icon/description, and, when 
started, launch the real executable, wine*something*.exe. 
That "wine*something*.exe" will for now basically show a 
message "Winesomething. Not implemented yet. If you see this message because 
of a running program, it means that the program is trying to...". With time, 
the .exe will be transformed into a useful substitute for the corresponding 
windows function.
For example:
intl.cpl - contains an icon (preferably a picture of the Earth; was thinking 
of going NASA on the subject), a description "Wine Locale Settings", and will 
execute winelocalesetup.exe. Winelocalesetup.exe would show a message: 
"Winelocalesetup. Not implemented yet. If you see this message, it means that 
a program is trying to call INTL.CPL, probably in order for you to modify the 
regional settings." That way, at least, it will be indicated to the user 
what's going on.

The idea for having both the cpls and the exes is, well, the cpls have to be 
called what they're called for compatibility reasons, and, once in place, 
need not be modified; the actual tool is contained within the .exe, which can 
be, well, a lot more flexible to develop than the CPL itself, and, can be 
replaced at any moment. And, well, although compatible with windows, it 
wouldn't be a pure repetition. (and no longer an empty control panel. Yay!)

BTW I have done quite some work on that winelocalesetup.exe, it reads the 
appropriate values from the registry, doesn't resemble the original 
intl.cpl's vision, and, well, is somewhat kinda useful (if only I could 
figure out how to WRITE the damn values, the keys keep turning back to their 
old values... oh well, guess I'll have to RTFM some more.)

So, any suggestions/comments/ideas?

[Juan Lang]

Hi,

While I think writing control panel applets for Wine may be a good
idea in general, I wonder whether the specific example you propose--a
locale setting control panel--might be better served by trying to
infer the correct settings from the Linux locale.

--Juan

On Sunday 16 March 2008 11:35:39 pm you wrote:
> Hi,
>
> While I think writing control panel applets for Wine may be a good
> idea in general, I wonder whether the specific example you propose--a
> locale setting control panel--might be better served by trying to
> infer the correct settings from the Linux locale.
>
> --Juan

I'm not sure how changing the decimal (in the example case) on linux would 
affect the linux apps themselves - will I have to switch it back and forth if 
another, linux app demands it to be ',' whilst the windows one wants a dot. 
(sorry if the question is somewhat stupid, still adapting, trying to get the 
windows way of thinking out of me head). 
So, in this particular case I was thinking of having the wine and linux 
locales as two different entities; After all, the win-apps only care about 
what the registry says, so no need to ever touch the global linux settings. 
(besides, the intl.cpl is the easiest and somewhat useful to make a 
substitute for, a nice starting point and a good test for the entire 
idea/toolkit; The truth is, I still haven't got much of a clue how the 
equivalent of appwiz.cpl would actually operate, not to mention (OMG!) 
hdwwiz.cpl).
In a more general sense, I have fresh memories of how frustrating the 
migration to linux can be in terms of the crash course you take once you see 
the desktop. So for a new user, having his favorite apps up and running 
properly under wine by doing something he's used to ->  Control Panel -> 
Regional Settings, rather than including a lesson in linux locale 
modification in the crash course would be nice. He can always take that 
lesson a few days later when he dares to get out of the box of the software 
he's used to ;)
BTW what about the general idea, a CPL (so the name matches) which executes 
a .exe (which does the real job,and is easier to substitute with another .exe 
when/if needed)? And a little hint on the structure... It looks like there 
are twenty-something *usual* applets. That would make 40+ additional files in 
the system32... maybe a c:/windows/winecontrolapplets folder which contains 
the .exes?

[Dmitry Timoshkov]

<pure_evil(a)mail.bg> wrote:
> I'm not sure how changing the decimal (in the example case) on linux would 
> affect the linux apps themselves - will I have to switch it back and forth if 
> another, linux app demands it to be ',' whilst the windows one wants a dot. 
> (sorry if the question is somewhat stupid, still adapting, trying to get the 
> windows way of thinking out of me head).

How about setting preferred values in ~/.wine/user.reg, under [Control Panel\International]
using your favourite text editor?

-- 
Dmitry.

On Monday 17 March 2008 09:30:33 am you wrote:
> <pure_evil(a)mail.bg> wrote:
> > I'm not sure how changing the decimal (in the example case) on linux
> > would affect the linux apps themselves - will I have to switch it back
> > and forth if another, linux app demands it to be ',' whilst the windows
> > one wants a dot. (sorry if the question is somewhat stupid, still
> > adapting, trying to get the windows way of thinking out of me head).
>
> How about setting preferred values in ~/.wine/user.reg, under [Control
> Panel\International] using your favourite text editor?

LoL in my particular case, I did all 3 things on all the 
install/reinstall/uninstall cases I had trying to get that app to work /it 
requires Bulgarian language, it uses MDAC, it has a MSSQL2005 server backend, 
it needs that dot, some part is Tahoma font, others are, well, just about any 
font you can imagine, I know the man who wrote it, his moto is: "allways new 
stuff, always microsoft" /OMG is he really gonna go VISTA in a year or 
two?! /, IT'S THE APP FROM HELL!!!!... And there's no substitute :( /
I copied intl.cpl, went regedit, and, used vi on the reg. All 3 worked, but I 
was thinking in the lines of, will a regular user be happy with any of the 
three options should he encounter such a monstrosity, or, a different 
monstrosity which requires a different cpl.