Re: Bug#363486: dpkg: [update-alternatives] New categories for: WORD, EXCEL, MEDIA-PLAYER etc.
| Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>:
| reassign 363486 debian-policy
|
| each package should agree on which interface is needed to be able to
| provide a specific alternative. And if they should provide a virtual
| package for it.
|
| On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 14:44:08 +0300, Jari Aalto wrote:
| > Package: dpkg
| > Version: 1.13.18
| > Severity: wishlist
| >
| > There are many programs that act on a file that contains certain extension
| > or if they support MIME types, they look up the program associated with it.
| >
| > The problem is that there are many programs to do the same thing. For example
| > Person trying to open "File Manager" must remmeber that the
| > esoteric names are
| >
| > xfe
| > mfm
| > emelfm
| > worker
| > krusader
| > endeavour2
| > rox-filer
| > thunar
| > ...
| >
| > The same problem is with Office programs:
| >
| > lyx
| > abiword
| > oowriter
| > ...
| >
| > The /etc/alternatives contains a good framework to canonicalize actions to
| > common names available in system and to control the preferred program.
| >
| > SUGGESTION
| >
| > Create new alternatives with names something like:
| >
| > x-office-word
| > x-office-excel
| > x-file-manager
| > x-archiver
| > x-media-player or "video-player"
| > x-music-player For music
| >
| > This way numerous programs could refer to common program "music-player",
| > which the arternatives frame work would provide. The generic names would
| > also add simplicity to overall handling of the various binaries that
| > would hook themselves to the alternatives base.
| >
| > Small window managers (Other than the KDE, Gnome, Xfce) would also
| > benefit from this, because they could use generic menu items and call
| > the "alternatives" name without the need to refer to certain binary,
| > which may not be installed.
To Debian Policy ML:
Is there any coordinated effort to standardize the name of the provided
programs in /etc/alternatives?
I revised the above proposal by adding prefix:
x-*
for programs requiring an X environment.
Jari
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