Re: Brief descriptions in menu entries
On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, Ben Burton wrote:
>
> > Point was, it is not necessary to convert Debian to accomplish what
> > the GenericName proposal wants. IMO it would be better to have KDE
> > improve its menu handling... integrate with the existing system; and
> > have an RMB on an item pop up a menu with actions for viewing the apps
> > docs, looking at the dpkg and apt views of the package the app comes
> > from, looking at the docs of the package, etc.
>
> There are two separate discussions here.
>
> 1) Adding genericname to the current menu system;
> 2) Replacing the current menu system with .desktop files.
>
> Chris is not suggesting (2) simply as an implementation of (1), but
> rather as an extension that also allows for translations and other
> goodies that come with .desktop files.
I said I liked it... but who aside from the current freedesktop
standard users gain anything? Also, I have noticed improvements in
menu snappiness and kbuildsycoca run times when I remove all the
non-english translations from KDE's files (don't think I've bothered
yet with KDE-3.1 though).
> Btw, regarding (1), I certainly don't want menu-methods to look up
> manpages to get genericnames. Not only is it an ugly solution but it's
> not at all clear how it will extract this generic name - even just the
> manpage title is generally too long and too specific, and is not
> tailored for menu entries.
Huh. Read it again, RMB = Right Mouse Button.
> As for (1), i.e., just adding a genericname field to the current system:
> this is completely painless. If a menu-method is not updated, nothing
> will break (and indeed some menu-methods won't be updated since they
> won't use genericnames). If a menu entry is not updated, nothing will
> break. If a window manager doesn't support or doesn't want to support
> genericnames then they don't have to.
>
> And moreover it's quite simple to implement. Menu-methods that do want
> to use genericnames will find it a simple addition (e.g., the KDE
> menu-methods would just write the extra field to the generated .desktop
> file).
So what is stopping Debian's KDE from using the menu system to
generate all of its menu?
- Bruce
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