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Re: Applications menu for Fvwm



On Thu, 03 Oct 1996 11:52:58 +0200 Christian Linhart 
(clinhart@ping.at) wrote:

> 
> Philippe Troin wrote:
> > As every wm configuration file is different, I suggest that every wm
> > package provides an install-menu-<wm> script which will handle
> > removal and additions to the window manager menus...
> > Then install-menu would dispatch the request to all installed wms.
> 
> Yes, I think that's the way to go. Should it just call all executables
> matching the pattern /usr/sbin/install-menu-* , or should it use
> /etc/X11/window-managers for finding out which wms are installed ?

I don't think /etc/X11/window-managers, is, err, managed as this. 
None of the window managers I have installed touch this file. It's 
just a conf file. It's used by /etc/X11/Xsession: Xsession picks the 
first wm in the list.
Then, we will have to force every window manager to register in 
/etc/X11/window-managers (or better, in an other special file). Or 
maybe we could create a virtual dependency call `wm' and ask dpkg 
about the installed wms ?

> Yep. Additionally, I propose the action "initialize" which
> takes the name of a wm as an argument. e.g.
> 	install-menu initialize fvwm2
> This will be invoked by the postinst of fvwm2.
> It will then call install-menu-fvwm2 for all entries
> install-menu's database.

Right, that makes an other special file where all the applications 
registered to install-menu are stored in case an other wm is 
installed. Gasp !
The `initialize' action would only be available for the install-menu 
frontend, not for the wm-specific backends...

> Of course not. I thought more about using package sections (such as
> graphics) as the name for the category. So, e.g. "tgif" will end up
> in the submenu named "graphics" because the tgif package belongs to
> the section "graphics". But probably this should only be used as
> a general guideline and not be mandated by the implementation of
> install-menu. 

Yeah, the current Debian tree is quite vague... But there should be a 
suggested list like: graphics, games, internet, misc, etc... But not 
matching the debian tree organization.

> > I've always considered a nice thing to update all of the users
> > menus... 
> This would really be cool.
> 
> > But what if the user changed the conf file beyond
> > recognition ?
> > I suggest using a meta comment, like this:
> > 	#---DEBIAN-UPDATE-CONFFILE---
> > With some other comment around saying that if this line is 
> > changed/deleted, automatic updates won't be possible anymore...
> Meta-comments should also be used to denote the part of the config
> file which may be changed by install-menu-<wm>.

Alternately (and this might be simplier), we could preprocess the 
conffiles with m4 or cpp and and make them include lists of 
applications.
Example (in wm Xwm):
	Define popup games
	#include</etc/Xwm/games.inc>
	End popup games
	etc...
And the user would have the possibility to add more stuff in the 
popup without messing up with install-menu...

Phil.


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