Re: some suggestions towards a Debian .desktop policy [Was: Warm up discussion about desktop files]
* Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> [110420 10:14]:
> > 5) Categories must contain applicable KDE,GNOME,GTK,Qt,Motif,Java[3]
> > so that a menu manager cat filter out things not matching
> > the UI look&feel if wanted.
> >
> > 6) A .desktop file is allowed to break above rules if is has a
> > OnlyShownIn limiting it to some environment(s) it belongs to.
> >
> > 7) In case of 6) there must be a .desktop file with the same
> > command and adhering to this policy, unless that command cannot
> > be run (or cannot work) outside this environment[4].
>
> I disagree with this rule. Menus are editable, so if a program is meant
> for an environment it should not be displayed by default in others. For
> example, Thunar works perfectly fine outside Xfce, but you don’t want to
> show it in KDE or GNOME.
The point of that rule is that some classic Window Manager[1] should
have all the installed programs available with sensible names.
Such users prefer to use whatever program is best suited for the task
and not the one looking in a specific way, so one wants to have all
available. If one menu provider does want to limit that, it should offer
some option to hide things without the right KDE/GNOME/GTK/Qt/Motif/Java
Categories.
> If the entry has Terminal=true, it must also have
> NoDisplay=true.
Again, that should be an option in the menu provider. If the point is of
hiding programs with an user-interface you do not like, that is the job
of the environment not wanting those. (Especially as other providers
cannot know when NoDisplay means "only for mime type handling" and when
it is "deemed to ugly by someone").
Bernhard R. Link
[1] I mean something like "legacy X Session" in newspeak.
Reply to: