Re: Debian Menu policy leads to confusion

[Linas Zvirblis <0x0007@gmail.com>]

Bill Allombert wrote:

> You are correct in that menu handle third level sections fine.
> What is missing is the support for automatically flattening the 
> third level sections if they are nearly empty.

Would that not cause "I installed one more package and menu changed all 
of the sudden" confusion among users?

> We could just use the translate_menus mechanism to automatically
> replace Apps by Applications. Just add the following lines to the file 
> /etc/menu-methods/translate_menus
>
> subtranslate section->section
>   Apps/       Applications/
> endtranslate
>
> and menu will apply the changes to all menu entries at once.

This did not preserve the deeper levels. Only writing a rule for each 
sub level (Apps/Editors to Applications/Editors, for example) worked for 
me. Is this the intended? Oh, and how do I deal with spaces? 
"i->skip_space()" seem to interfere with them, but I did not read the 
entire code.

> Well, we can reuse the translate_menus mechanism to make the migration
> painless. Could you write a /etc/menu-methods/translate_menus file
> that implement the change ?

Sure, as soon as I am satisfied with the structure.

> However I am not going to rename the menus without a lot of support from
> the project, of course.
>
> Maybe we can split your proposal in two parts
> 1) adding new sections
> 2) renaming of old sections
>
> and submit them as separate issues.

Well, then it actually should be:

1. Adding new sections.
2. Renaming old sections.
3. Removing old sections.
4. Changing the definition of old sections.

I do not expect everything to be accepted as is, but it is rather 
difficult to separate these at this point, so I would rather submit this 
in one peace. I do not expect it to be accepted as is anyway.

And here is what I did to "System". I, however, am not yet sure what to 
do with packages such as reportbug and gdm. These are only examples from 
my system, there are probably more.

 System
 System related software. This is three level menu, do not put entries 
in second (this) level.

  System/Administration [alt. name - Configuration]
  Administrative and system configuration utilities, also tools for 
personal user settings.
  gnome-control-center, configure-debian, gksu

  System/Device Specific [for stuff like "Apps/System/Toshiba"?]
  [no description yet]

  System/Monitoring [alt. name - Information]
  System information and monitoring tools, log viewers.
  top, hal-device-manager, gtkdiskfree

  System/Package Management
  Package managers and related tools.
  aptitude, deborphan, smartpm

  System/Security
  Security, cryptography and privacy related software, antiviruses.
  gpgkeys, bastille, avscan

I will investigate more when I have a bit free time, as there currently 
are a lot of weird 3 and 4 level entries that I am not sure how to deal 
with.

Regards,
Linas