Build user menu entries in postinst

[Andreas Tille <tillea@rki.de>]

Hello,

I was thinking for a long time whether it is good to build the user
menu entries from the installed packages instead of just cut and pasting
them in the meta package.  I now plan to do the following:

  1. Check the following ($PKG = meta package name)

        cddmenufile=""
        if   [ -s "$HOME"/.menu/"$PKG" ] ; then
                cddmenufile="$HOME"/.menu/"$PKG"
        elif [ -s /etc/cdd/"$CDD"/menu/"$PKG" ] ; then
                cddmenufile=/etc/cdd/"$CDD"/menu/"$PKG"
        elif [ -s /usr/lib/cdd/"$CDD"/menu/"$PKG" ] ; then
                cddmenufile=/usr/lib/cdd/"$CDD"/menu/"$PKG"
        elif [ -s /usr/share/cdd/"$CDD"/menu/"$PKG" ] ; then
                cddmenufile=/usr/share/cdd/"$CDD"/menu/"$PKG"
        fi

    If $cddmenufile exists and contains an entry for the dependand
    package A (dep_A) (this is checked via
        [ ! -z "$cddmenufile" ] && grep -q -i "?package($dep_A)" "$cddmenufile"
    ) then use this menu entry in the user menu in
    favour of using the menu entry the package maintainer of the
    package dep_A is providing.

 2. The next option for overriding the menu entry of the package
    maintainer of dep_A is to provide a document file in
       /usr/share/doc/$PKG/
    which might be named as follows

            docfile=""
            if   [ -s /usr/share/doc/"$PKG"/"$pkg".html ] ; then
                docfile=/usr/share/doc/"$PKG"/"$pkg".html
            elif [ -s /usr/share/doc/"$PKG"/"$pkg".txt ] ; then
                docfile=/usr/share/doc/"$PKG"/"$pkg".txt
            elif [ -s /usr/share/doc/"$PKG"/"$pkg" ] ; then
                docfile=/usr/share/doc/"$PKG"/"$pkg"
            fi

    if such a file exists use file to find out whether it is html or
    not and call either sensible-browser or sensible-pager.  So the
    resulting menu entry looks like

     ?package(dep_a): needs="text" \
	    section="CDD/Task" \
            title="dep_A" \
            command="sensible-<something> $docfile" \
            hints="<html-title> / first line of text"

 3. If the meta package maintainer does not use these chances for
    intervention in the user menu it is obtained automagically from
    the normal package menu.  The only change to this file is that
    the section entry is changed to "CDD/Task".  This enables easily
    following package maintainer changes without changing the meta
    package.  On the other hand we pay the price that we have not the
    freedom to add menu hints or whatever.  Bothering package maintainers
    with bug reports (and patches) would help here and enhances general
    Debian quality as a whole.

 4. I'm currently thinking about creating a menu entry as last option
    if all else fails which just prints the package description and
    recommends to read /usr/share/doc/<dep_A> by using the sensible-pager.

Comments?

Kind regards

         Andreas.