Re: Menu system rewrite update (Aug 6 2002)
On Aug 08, David B Harris wrote:
> Okay, after reading the spec, I'm glad to see they've tried to support a
> more dynamic layout :) But they're still basically using a static
> hierarchy; though the ordering of the "categories" may be changed,
> they'll still remain the same.
>
> Why? Because of the static list of keywords. We've seen before that
> adding keywords to a standard like this is damned near impossible,
> whether it be for political or technical reasons.
George has added every single keyword I've suggested to him with no
hassle whatsoever (although you'll have to read the XDG mail archives
to find the changes... not posted yet on the website). And Debian (or
any other vendor) can specify additional ones, just by prefixing them
with X-Debian-. On the other hand, I don't want a lot of new, ad-hoc
menu categories being added in 17 different directions.
> I think that for Debian's menu system, we should encourage a more
> freeform approach. No, we don't want people adding stuff willy-nilly. We
> _DO_ want to add stuff though, right? I mean, the categories listed
> there are pretty limited, and they're also narrowly defined. There's no
> "calculator" keyword, for instance. And while there's a "shell" keyword,
> it's defined as a "console shell", something most people will think to
> be a standard CLI.
Well, the Group keyword tries to resolve some of this difficulty, if
you have a lot of menu entries. (Note there is also a
"TerminalEmulator" keyword, which will handle things in the current
XShells menu.)
I also intend to allow people to manipulate the hierarchy that is
output.
Chris
--
Chris Lawrence <cnlawren@phy.olemiss.edu> - http://www.lordsutch.com/chris/
Computer Systems Manager, Physics and Astronomy, Univ. of Mississippi
125B Lewis Hall - 662-915-5765
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