"Don Armstrong" <don@debian.org> wrote in message [🔎] 20070716111202.GA21569@volo.donarmstrong.com">news:[🔎] 20070716111202.GA21569@volo.donarmstrong.com...
So it seems like we should do the following: 1. Make changes to the menu system to use .desktop files in preference to .menu files when they exist 2. Generate .desktop files from .menu files using the menu system when .desktop files don't exist. 3. Continue using the menu system for window managers which don't natively understand .desktop files; drop the Debian menu for those that do. The other issue that was brought up was improving the hierarchical organization of the menus, but how to do that hasn't been made clear in this thread.
That is exactly the correct thing to do. It has the advantage of basically converting Debian to the stardard FDO .desktop format. It also effectively adds limited support for the FDO format to the other window managers (the menu system would be converting the .desktop files of any installed package automatically).
Of course one of the keys to this transition would be to eventually depreciate the .menu files. If the menu system can read the .desktop files then there would be no reason to keep the .menu format around long term, but it would need to stay temporally as part of the transition.