Re: /usr/lib/menu vs .desktop files - possible mass bug filling
On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 08:05:42PM +0200, Artur R. Czechowski wrote:
> Hello,
> I would like to know your opinion about creating menu from Debian packages.
> Debian Policy. section 9.6 says that, under some conditions (not significant
> in this case), package should register a menu entry for its applications,
> for users of the menu and pdmenu packages.
I answer solely as the menu maintainer, I am not a policy editor.
> I've found[1] 48 packages[3] which have ${packagename}.desktop in
> /usr/share/gnome/apps subdirectories without menu file in /usr/lib/menu.
>
> So, my question are:
> Does update-menu support .desktop file?
No, it does not. (menu and .desktop are incompatible standard).
> Do window managers in Debian support .desktop file?
KDE does. Maybe GNOME . The freedesktop menu standard is not yet widely
deployed.
> Are there any plans to change Debian Policy and use .desktop files?
No but it is possible to generate .desktop file from menu file when
the maintainer does not ship a .desktop file.
See the menu-xdg for that purpose.
> And, if answers to all above questions are negative:
> Should I review[2] those packages and file RC bug agains them?
This is not a RC bug since it is a 'should', it is just a normal
bug. On the other hand, it is a problem I think is worth solving,
there is usually no reason a program should appear only in
freedesktop menu compliant wm.
Probably writing a lintian check would be the best solution to handle
this issue.
> [2] This list has been generated automagically with attached script, I
> didn't review manually those packages. Please notify me if you find
> any inconsistencies.
I am afraid there are too much false positive. Myabe posting the list
to debian-devel could raise awareness and help trimming them out
For example ogle menu file is in the ogle package but the .desktop is
part of ogle-gui. Apparently the ogle menu entry is broken if ogle-gui
is not installed.
python 2.3 include a menu entry (/usr/lib/menu/python2.3) and a desktop
file for konsole (/usr/share/apps/konsole/python.desktop) which I don't
think is related.
Maybe you could change your script to use the Contents files. This would
be faster and could catch some false positives.
Thanks for your effort!
--
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>
Imagine a large red swirl here.
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