On Tue, Nov 02, 1999 at 05:04:33PM -0800, Chris Waters wrote:
> > I was tempted to say I disagree- then I realised I had no /firsthand/
> > experience of other systems, just that people who'd watched me install
> > Debian liked the way the menu system seemed to work properly...
>=20
> Well, speaking as someone who has used a pretty wide variety of menu
> systems, I have to say that I *do* disagree 100% with Torsten.
> Debian's menu system is one of the key factors that made me decide to
> choose Debian back when I was comparing Linux distros. And it's far
> superior to non-Linuxish offerings like CDE as well, IMO.
Right. I also like the Debian menu system for being consistent and finding=
=20
everything in there. It works well for simple text and no translation.=20
> I suspect that Torsten is simply unaware of many of the features of
> Debian's menu system -- it really could use some better documentation.
I read all the docs and even part of the source. Why? I wanted to include=
=20
an icon for Communicator in the ICafe I installed Debian in. I tried for=20
hours and failed because of some obscure problem when running update-menus.
Furthermore you do not need to run update-menus or something like that if=
=20
you are installing something into the Gnome menus.=20
> I note that many people aren't even aware that Debian's menu system
> has support for translations.
I knew it has. Also I was unable to use it while I copied an example=20
verbatim from the documentation and changed the string to be translated=20
and the translation. It never worked.
> > Translations are a major omission, though.
>=20
> The hooks are there, it's just a matter of making better use of them.
> However, this is the one area where the design of Debian's menus is a
> bit weak. OTOH, I'm not sure that it's possible to make a menu system
> as flexible and useful as Debian's that provides easier translations.
The hooks are NOT there. At least there is nothing I could work with.=20
I am the administrator in a pc lab of our university. We have users=20
from Finland, Brazil, Germany, Portugal and UK. Now tell me how to=20
get the possibility to have each of them select the language he wants=20
at runtime!? menu will translate menus when generating the system wide=20
menu files. This is not what I need or want. Personally I prefer getting=20
the english names of everything.
You might argue this isn't supported for each window manager or menu. Right=
.=20
This is why menu can't support something like this without problems.=20
Furthermore we would need to add translations to a bazillions of Applicatio=
ns.=20
It's already done for the Gnome menu and the KDE menus.=20
menu is old and obsolete in my eyes. We should replace it with something
better.=20
> Many window managers and other menu-using tools don't have any
> internal support for this. So, the approach that the Debian menu
> system uses, while limited, may be the best possible compromise.
This seems to be the behaviour of those commercial software companies. Not=
=20
everything support this so let's get away with the greatest common divisor.=
=20
Following this path we will never improve as we don't use the features of=
=20
our new software.=20
While you tell me you like those Debian menus (and probably many other Debi=
an=20
users will as long as they know the system well and speak english), I was=
=20
asked if I could remove those "silly" menu entries from our systems.=20
Nobody ever uses the Debian menus. Why? They are to deep nested. I know I c=
an=20
add translations and stuff but this is even more work then just creating a=
=20
new menu hierarchy just for my users with the stuff which is most commonly=
=20
needed.
> IOW, we could improve the support for NLS, but, I suspect, only at the
> cost of dropping support for some window managers and menu programs.
> Which would be a Bad Thing.
Hmm. BTW - does WindowMaker support i18n? imo we could drop update-menus=20
and friends without replacement.
> Still, if it were possible, I'd rather see better NLS in Debian's menu
> system and use that in Gnome than use Gnome's existing menu system.
I did not look at the implementation of the gnome panel but me thinks=20
that the approach used by Gnome and KDE is by far superior to our menu syst=
em.
Of course only Gnome and KDE are supported but we could as well move our=20
menu definition files to comply with those systems as well. This would=20
remove another file format which is good.
BTW: The reason why the Debian menu is so good is not the menu system but=
=20
that most package maintainers supply a menu entry for their packages.
cu
Torsten
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