

Re: Debian and the desktop


thanks for your comments.

Bill Allombert wrote:
> But there are another way: KDE and GNOME provide a non-Debian menu.
> However there are no clear definition about what should go in this menu.
> Maybe the policy could be to only put in this menu the applications
> might be a simpler way to get the same results.
This could be a very good idea.

One of the things that are probably impossible without a decider (which
is one of the things that many Debian derivatives have and Debian does)
to single out one package for a purpose (e.g. one word processor) to
include in a simple default install/menu. Having a dozen entries with
"Text Editor" denoting applications from gedit to emacs is probably not
too cool.

As I'm into specific and possible things, though (and have two 1-item
categories in my gnome menu which I can file bugs about but maybe
maintainers should be helped to get this right):
- how about linda/lintian check for empty longtitle in menu files
  and comment in .desktop files.
  (this is used as a hint (shown when the mouse hovers over the menu
  entry) in the Debian/Gnome/KDE(?) menu)
- a linda/lintian check for categories in .desktop to match
  with freedesktop.org's register [1]
- mention .desktops in some Debian packaging documentation (which one)
  to point people to the freedesktop.org documents [2] (I missed the
  category register at first), saying something about how binding
  that is and implement some further checks in lintian
- maybe standardize on the .desktop locations

Kind regards


P.S.: Could someone give me a pointer about moving to .desktop and why
it is/was considered a bad idea? (Or if it's just a not worth it/noone
has time issue...) It seems burdenful for maintainers to provide both
and they're not always well synced (I noticed that emacs21's .desktop
comment used as hint in the Gnome menu was meaningful whereas the menu
file lacked a longtitle that is used as hint in the Debian menu.)

1. http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html
2. http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/
Thomas Viehmann, http://thomas.viehmann.net/

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