Bug#707851: debian-policy: soften the wording recommending menu files
On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 12:05:11PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On 14-05-13 23:31, Bill Allombert wrote:
> > On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 12:50:14PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> >> Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org> writes:
> >>> On 13-05-13 10:02, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> >>
> >>>> Packages can, to be compatible with Debian additions to some
> >>>> legacy window managers, also provide a menu file. Such menu
> >>>> entries should follow the Debian menu policy, which can be found
> >>>> in the menu-policy files in the debian-policy package. It is
> >>>> also available from the Debian web mirrors
> >>>> at /doc/packaging-manuals/menu-policy/.
> >>
> >>> If we're going to suggest desktop files in policy, I would rather prefer
> >>> that we change window managers to read desktop files instead of menu
> >>> files, and remove this suggestion altogether. Having two ways to specify
> >>> menu entries means you'll get two half menus rather than one whole,
> >>> which isn't a good idea.
> >>
> >> So would everyone else, but no one has done the work. I think enough
> >> years have gone by that it doesn't make sense to keep waiting for someone
> >> to volunteer to do this work for the less common window managers like
> >> fvwm.
> >
> > Because this is not possible. The XDG menu specification requires funky stuff like
> > XSLT processing which are not compatible with the spirit of a lightweight window
> > manager.
>
> Do you have any reference to that?
<http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-spec-1.0.html#menu-file-format>
<http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-spec-1.0.html#merge-algorithm>
<http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-spec-1.0.html#query-algorithm>
The menu layout files are XML. While the standard does not mandate the use of
XSLT, it requires manipulation of XML files which are equivalent to XSLT
processing.
> implement the desktop format to the letter"; more like "you should
> distill a usable menu from things in /usr/share/applications". Sometimes
> this may mean losing information, but that's probably fine.
This means we would lose the consistent menu layout across window manager that
menu bring. This would also be an admittance that the XDG menu specification is
overblown.
I see that none of the issues with the specification have been fixed in the
last ten years, and that GNOME have been drifting away without any update to
the specification.
Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>
Imagine a large red swirl here.
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