Re: adding desktop files to misc packages
* Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> [070713 23:44]:
> IMO the Debian menu should be entirely deprecated unless something
> serious is done about it. Currently:
> * It is utterly and absolutely ugly. 32x32 XPM icons are not
> matching the graphic quality we have on the rest of the desktop.
Then just add larger or any other icons (in appropiate additional fields).
One of my packages already has a 64x64 icon. Currently no window manager
user it, but if I would use any window manager showing icons and not
scaling them down to 16x16 it would be almost no efford to make them use
them.
> * Its structure is impractical. Most important things are in
> Applications/, which adds a menu level with no use, and several
> submenus are useless.
That's a question of policy, not of the system. And actually arguing
about policy is in my eyes a point for menu files, as people are
supposed to read Debian policy to create it, and not blindly copying
other people's work, that are following (or even not following) some
other set of policy or another interpretation of policy.
> * Most importantly, it is absolutely full of useless stuff.
> A menu entry for each window manager? WTF? We can select them from the
> display manager now.
But if the display manager is only worth 2 cents, it's Debian default
configuration should get it from the place where all window managers
give proper notice of their existance, which is the Debian menu.
Also just because many of the new shiny desktop environment systems want
to reinvent everything, there are still many window managers which
are able to properly change window managers on the fly, to any other
window manager. Please do not drop this feature just because your pet
toy does not support it (or supports it but you never used it).
> An entry for each python/TCL/guile interpreter on the system? Can't
> developers use terminals?
> An entry for each of the bsdgames? For nano? For so many terminal
> applications that you want to run, well, in a terminal?
This is the primary reason why I hope the Debian menu will stay, because
it is centered as user-friendlyness and not about some obscure ideology.
Users need programs to do their tasks, no matter if they are terminal or
what guikit they use. If you have a different feeling or think you have
users fitting better into the ideology, the Debian menu system provides
all means to do a simple global change (like not showing terminal apps,
or moving everything you do not like to a other place) for a single or
all users on your systems, while the default can still be what it most
helpfull for people: Have everything that is available and usefull to
start without parameters as an easy to find menu item.
Bernhard R. Link
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