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Re: Install-*-menu policy



[ Please don't Cc: me when replying to my message on a mailing list. ]

joost witteveen:
> No! install-menu will not have anything to do with X.

Right. That's one of the things I never thought about when I wrote
(the original) install-fvwm2menu.

> OK, at the moment the only actually existing menu that uses install-menu is
> fvwm2,

Unless I missed an update, install-menu isn't yet used by the
official fvwm2 package.

Just to make things clear:

	* The current version of fvwm2 in rex has install-fvwm2menu,
	  which works, and which a couple of packages already use
	
	* install-menu is a prototype/suggestion that is not yet
	  used by any package. It's a more generic interface than
	  install-fvwm2menu. Once it's employed, it will be a 
	  Good Thing. I wish I'd have thought more clearly and
	  suggested it myself.
	  
	* No packages intended for Debian release 1.2 is expected to
	  use either install-fvwm2menu or install-menu. They are
	  allowed to use them, if they notice them to be available.
	  
	* For Debian 1.3, I hope and expect we will have install-menu
	  working (shouldn't be too hard, actually) and part of dpkg,
	  and then all packages are expected to use it, if it makes 
	  sense to them.

I hope I have understood the situation clearly.

> install-menu X .....   -> this package needs X
> install-menu VC ....   -> this package doens't, and only uses the VC.

I don't think VC is what you mean, unless you're only talking about
svgalib. Even X users might want to be able to use programs intended
for text terminal, if no X version is available. So, for example,
Pine could do this:

	install-menu text Apps/Net pine pine.xpm "Pine" "pine"

install-menu installs both to the global menu configuration file.
Fvwm2's menu driver sees that only a text version exists, so it
installs a menu entry that runs the following command:

	xterm -e pine

It should be configurable to run rxvt instead. This means that
Pine shouldn't do this as well:

	install-menu X Apps/Net pine pine.xpm "Pine" "xterm -e pine"

because then using rxvt instead is painful.

We need at least three kinds of "needs":

	text	needs a text terminal (VC, xterm, real terminal)
	X	needs an X display
	svgalib	needs a VC and svgalib

> But, as the dpkg maintainer hasn't replied to my mail yet,

Ian's quite busy, but he'll undoubtedly do something about it sooner
or later. Anyway, it should be developed outside dpkg first, and only
included in dpkg once it works.

You're right about having a separate "install-menu" package
being a bad idea.  We have enough small packages already. It
really belongs in dpkg.

-- 
Please read <http://www.iki.fi/liw/mail-to-lasu.html> before mailing me.
Please don't Cc: me when replying to my message on a mailing list.


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