Re: adding desktop files to misc packages

[Florent Rougon <f.rougon@free.fr>]

SCNR...

Frank Küster <frank@debian.org> wrote:

Frank> That turns out not to be the case. If I use an app frequently, then it
Frank> goes on the toolbar. The menu is for finding infrequently used apps. For
Frank> a lot of users, browsing the menu is how they find out what's available.

Mike> IIRC, gnome is going to switch to gnome-main-menu. There is a reason for
Mike> this.

[...]

Frank> I haven't watched the whole video (it being boring to me), but from the
Frank> reading I still don't understand which of my statements you want to
Frank> contradict, let alone why.

Seems very clear to me: it has been almost a decade now since the GNOME
project tries hard to get rid of every feature that makes their software
more usable (I'm speaking here about real usability, not about
eye-candy).

Witness:
  - usable completion in the File Open dialog   -> gone
  - customizable keyboard shortcuts in apps[1]  -> gone

And now, a usable menu listing available applications is going to be
replaced by a "thing" where you have to find your casually-used app in a
300-entries unstructered list after clicking on "More applications..."
(exactly as the "Open With..." in MS Windows works, no wonder where they
got the idea).

So, yes, there *is* a reason GNOME is going to switch to
gnome-main-menu: the previous menu still had a little remainder of
(real) usability.


  [1] No, don't tell me that it is a simple matter of adding
      "gtk-can-change-accels=1" to ~/.gtkrc-2.0. This simply *does*
      *not* *work*. For instance, even with this, you have to go hunt
      for the specific option in Gimp's Preferences menu before you can
      at last add your own keyboard shortcuts. Ugh.

-- 
Florent