Re: vfolder .desktop and Window Maker
Hi Havoc,
do you read debian-gtk-gnome? Should I keep you in the Cc:?
On Mon, Feb 17, 2003 at 05:37:50PM -0500, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> > Furthermore, Debian's centralized approach allows either the admin
> > or the user to define centralized filters that apply to the entire
> > heirarchy.
>
> What do you mean by "centralized filters" - just disabling/enabling
> certain menu items? The .menu files in the new spec should allow
> people to rearrange the menus however they want.
He means being able to apply global transformations to the menu
entries. With Debian's menu, it's possible to replace
Apps/Tools/Clocks/ by Dabidu/ by modifying a configuration file. Other
kinds of transformations are possible. I have used the feature only a
couple of times in several years.
AFAICS, this is covered by the merge stuff and the funky commands
(<Move>, <Delete>, ...)
> The idea in the new spec is that apps install the .desktop file
> (which contains info on the actual menu item), but the menu layout,
> and what actually appears in the menus, is all in the .menu config
> file(s).
In other words, it's possible for filter out, say, Qt applications
provided that they are correctly categorized.
What's not clear to me is how you picture this whole thing working.
Should applications (e.g. Window Maker) read and parse the .desktop and
.menu files. I see that you *could* apply transformations to generate
menus in other formats, but I get the feeling you do intend
applications for the data directly.
> > The new VFolder proposal includes equivalents of Debian's hints
> > (the Categories), which is good, but it leaves it up to the apps
> > what to do with them (if anything). Debian's centralized scheme
> > ensures consistency here.
>
> I don't understand exactly what you mean by this.
I think Martin's question relates to my own. Do applications read the
data directly, or is it preprocessed by something else?
<-- An Office submenu, specified inline -->
<Menu>
<Name>Office</Name>
<Directory>Office.directory</Directory>
<Include>
<Category>Office</Category>
</Include>
<Exclude>
<Filename>foo.desktop</Filename>
</Exclude>
</Menu>
what's category doing there? I guess my question is rather, what are
all those selectors doing there? It looks as if the .menu files where
the input for some sort of XSLT thing, but without actually being XSL
transformations.
It certainly looks complicated. Why am I including a directory callted
"Office" and then explicitely saying that I only want the "Office"
entries? Is this just a bad example?
Marcelo
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