Re: adding desktop files to misc packages

[Bruce Sass <bmsass@shaw.ca>]

On Thu July 26 2007 01:02:57 am Frank Küster wrote:
> Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> wrote:
> > If an application is used so infrequently, it shouldn't have its
> > place in a menu.
>
> It seems we have a very different notion of what a menu is.  To me,
> the reply "Exactly because it is used infrequently it should have its
> place" is obvious and follows strictly from my understanding of a
> menu, I don't even need an argument for that.  To you, it seems to be
> the contrary.

I'm with Frank; what Josselin said only makes sense to me if 
s/menu/panel or quicklauncher/

> > This is also my usage scheme: everyday apps in the session, less
> > frequently used apps in the menu, rarely used apps in a terminal or
> > a launching tool.
>
> I don't make this distinction between "less used" and "rarely used",
> and I'm not even sure what a launching tool is.  I nearly never start
> a graphical application from the terminal, and I don't need to be
> able to start terminal applications from the menu: For me that is the
> only reason for deciding whether something should have a (possibly
> hidden) menu entry.

I don't think there is any clear dividing line between graphical and 
terminal based apps as far as menus go. I routinely use text based apps 
in a windowed environment and if they didn't have a menu entry I would 
make one because having to open up a term and type in a command or 
start pdmenu is kinda silly when there is a menu system a click away.


The only thing I'm getting outta this round of the discussion is that 
anything less than complete flexibility with respect to which items get 
placed in whatever menus would be a mistake. I.e., code the thing up so 
that it is easy to tell it how to build menus instead of writing it to 
conform to any particular idea of how menus are used.


- Bruce