Bug#707851: [call for seconds] Re: Bug#707851: Let's remove the Debian menu from the Debian Policy ?
Le Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 11:32:43PM +0100, Sune Vuorela a écrit :
>
> I have the impression that most people seems to agree on something like this.
> I think I might even stretch it and call it a 'rough consensus' with a couple
> of people in the rough end of it.
>
> Can we please move it forward?
Thanks Sune for keeping the momentum.
Thanks also Markus for your comments during the last round of dicussion on
debian-devel.
In his original wording, Josselin proposed to add at the end of section 9.6 one
sentence pointing to the Debian menu as an option. Here it is, rephrased to
replace “legacy window managers” by “window managers that do not support the
FreeDesktop standard”, which is more techically precise.
<p>
Packages can, to be compatible with Debian additions to some window
managers that do not support the FreeDesktop standard, also provide a
<em>Debian menu</em> file, following the <em>Debian menu policy</em>,
which can be found in the <tt>menu-policy</tt> files in the
<tt>debian-policy</tt> package. It is also available from the Debian
web mirrors at <tt><url name="/doc/packaging-manuals/menu-policy/"
id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/menu-policy/";></tt>.
</p>
With the addition above, I call for seconds (patch attached). Markus, please
raise your hand if I was wrong to think that this addition correctly addresses
your comments.
Have a nice day,
--
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan
diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index dad8d23..43c93d3 100644
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -8054,38 +8054,75 @@ Reloading <var>description</var> configuration...done.
<heading>Menus</heading>
<p>
- The Debian <tt>menu</tt> package provides a standard
- interface between packages providing applications and
- <em>menu programs</em> (either X window managers or
- text-based menu programs such as <prgn>pdmenu</prgn>).
+ Packages shipping applications that comply with minimal requirements
+ described below for integration with desktop environments should
+ register these applications in the desktop menu, following the
+ <em>FreeDesktop</em> standard, using text files called
+ <em>desktop entries</em>. Their format is described in the
+ <em>Desktop Entry Specification</em> at
+ <url id="http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/";>
+ and complementary information can be found in the
+ <em>Desktop Menu Specification</em> at
+ <url id="http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/";>.
</p>
<p>
- All packages that provide applications that need not be
- passed any special command line arguments for normal
- operation should register a menu entry for those
- applications, so that users of the <tt>menu</tt> package
- will automatically get menu entries in their window
- managers, as well in shells like <tt>pdmenu</tt>.
+ The desktop entry files are installed by the packages in the
+ directory <file>/usr/share/applications</file> and the FreeDesktop
+ menus are refreshed using <em>dpkg triggers</em>. It is therefore
+ not necessary to depend on packages providing FreeDesktop menu
+ systems.
</p>
<p>
- Menu entries should follow the current menu policy.
+ Entries displayed in the FreeDesktop menu should conform to the
+ following minima for relevance and visual integration.
+
+ <list>
+ <item>
+ Unless hidden by default, the desktop entry must point to a PNG
+ or SVG icon with a transparent background, providing at least
+ the 22×22 size, and preferably up to 64×64. The icon
+ should be neutral enough to integrate well with the default icon
+ themes. It is encouraged to ship the icon in the default
+ <em>hicolor</em> icon theme directories, or to use an existing
+ icon from the <em>hicolor</em> theme.
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ If the menu entry is not useful in the general case as a
+ standalone application, the desktop entry should set the
+ <tt>NoDisplay</tt> key to <var>true</var>, so that it can be
+ configured to be displayed only by those who need it.
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ In doubt, the package maintainer should coordinate with the
+ maintainers of menu implementations through the
+ <em>debian-desktop</em> mailing list in order to avoid problems
+ with categories or bad interactions with other icons. Especially
+ for packages which are part of installation tasks, the contents
+ of the <tt>NotShowIn</tt>/<tt>OnlyShowIn</tt> keys should be
+ validated by the maintainers of the relevant environments.
+ </item>
+ </list>
</p>
<p>
- The menu policy can be found in the <tt>menu-policy</tt>
- files in the <tt>debian-policy</tt> package.
- It is also available from the Debian web mirrors at
- <tt><url name="/doc/packaging-manuals/menu-policy/"
- id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/menu-policy/";></tt>.
+ Since the FreeDesktop menu is a cross-distribution standard, the
+ desktop entries written for Debian should be forwarded upstream,
+ where they will benefit to other users and are more likely to
+ receive extra contributions such as translations.
</p>
- <p>
- Please also refer to the <em>Debian Menu System</em>
- documentation that comes with the <package>menu</package>
- package for information about how to register your
- applications.
+ <p>
+ Packages can, to be compatible with Debian additions to some window
+ managers that do not support the FreeDesktop standard, also provide a
+ <em>Debian menu</em> file, following the <em>Debian menu policy</em>,
+ which can be found in the <tt>menu-policy</tt> files in the
+ <tt>debian-policy</tt> package. It is also available from the Debian
+ web mirrors at <tt><url name="/doc/packaging-manuals/menu-policy/"
+ id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/menu-policy/";></tt>.
</p>
</sect>
@@ -8093,42 +8130,109 @@ Reloading <var>description</var> configuration...done.
<heading>Multimedia handlers</heading>
<p>
- MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, RFCs 2045-2049)
- is a mechanism for encoding files and data streams and
- providing meta-information about them, in particular their
- type (e.g. audio or video) and format (e.g. PNG, HTML,
- MP3).
+ Media types (formerly known as MIME types, Multipurpose Internet Mail
+ Extensions, RFCs 2045-2049) is a mechanism for encoding files and
+ data streams and providing meta-information about them, in particular
+ their type and format (e.g. <tt>image/png</tt>, <tt>text/html</tt>,
+ <tt>audio/ogg</tt>).
</p>
<p>
- Registration of MIME type handlers allows programs like mail
+ Registration of media type handlers allows programs like mail
user agents and web browsers to invoke these handlers to
- view, edit or display MIME types they don't support directly.
+ view, edit or display media types they don't support directly.
</p>
<p>
- Packages which provide programs to view/show/play, compose, edit or
- print MIME types should register them as such by placing a file in
- <manref name="mailcap" section="5"> format (RFC 1524) in the directory
- <file>/usr/lib/mime/packages/</file>. The file name should be the
- binary package's name.
+ There are two overlaping systems to associate media types to programs
+ which can handle them. The <em>mailcap</em> system is found on a
+ large number of Unix systems. The <em>FreeDesktop</em> system is
+ aimed at Desktop environments. In Debian, FreeDesktop entries are
+ automatically translated in mailcap entries, therefore packages
+ already using desktop entries should not use the mailcap system
+ directly.
</p>
- <p>
- The <package>mime-support</package> package provides the
- <prgn>update-mime</prgn> program, which integrates these
- registrations in the <file>/etc/mailcap</file> file, using dpkg
- triggers<footnote>
- Creating, modifying or removing a file in
- <file>/usr/lib/mime/packages/</file> using maintainer scripts will
- not activate the trigger. In that case, it can be done by calling
- <tt>dpkg-trigger --no-await /usr/lib/mime/packages</tt> from
- the maintainer script after creating, modifying, or removing
- the file.
- </footnote>.
- Packages using this facility <em>should not</em> depend on,
- recommend, or suggest <prgn>mime-support</prgn>.
- </p>
+ <sect1 id="media-types-freedesktop">
+ <heading>Registration of media type handlers with desktop entries</heading>
+
+ <p>
+ Packages shipping an application able to view, edit or point to
+ files of a given media type, or open links with a given URI scheme,
+ should list it in the <tt>MimeType</tt> key of the application's
+ <qref id="menus">desktop entry</qref>. For URI schemes,
+ the relevant MIME types are <tt>x-scheme-handler/*</tt> (e.g.
+ <tt>x-scheme-handler/https</tt>).
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="mailcap">
+ <heading>Registration of media type handlers with mailcap entries</heading>
+
+ <p>
+ Packages that are not using desktop entries for registration should
+ install a file in <manref name="mailcap" section="5"> format (RFC
+ 1524) in the directory <file>/usr/lib/mime/packages/</file>. The
+ file name should be the binary package's name.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ The <package>mime-support</package> package provides the
+ <prgn>update-mime</prgn> program, which integrates these
+ registrations in the <file>/etc/mailcap</file> file, using dpkg
+ triggers<footnote>
+ Creating, modifying or removing a file in
+ <file>/usr/lib/mime/packages/</file> using maintainer scripts will
+ not activate the trigger. In that case, it can be done by calling
+ <tt>dpkg-trigger --no-await /usr/lib/mime/packages</tt> from
+ the maintainer script after creating, modifying, or removing
+ the file.
+ </footnote>.
+
+ <p>
+ Packages installing desktop entries should not install mailcap
+ entries for the same program, because the
+ <package>mime-support</package> package already reads desktop
+ entries.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ Packages using these facilities <em>should not</em> depend on,
+ recommend, or suggest <prgn>mime-support</prgn>.
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="file-media-type">
+ <heading>Providing media types to files</heading>
+
+ <p>
+ The media type of a file is discovered by inspecting the file's
+ extension or its <manref name="magic" section="5"> pattern, and
+ interrogating a database associating them with media types.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ To support new associations between media types and files, their
+ characteristic file extensions and magic patterns should be
+ registered to the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). See
+ <url id="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types";> and RFC 6838
+ for details. This information will then propagate to the systems
+ discovering file media types in Debian, provided by the
+ <package>shared-mime-info</package>,
+ <package>mime-support</package> and <package>file</package>
+ packages. If registration and propagation can not be waited for,
+ support can be asked to the maintainers of the packages mentioned
+ above.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ For files that are produced and read by a single application, it
+ is also possible to declare this association to the
+ <em>Shared MIME Info</em> system by installing in the directory
+ <file>/usr/share/mime/packages</file> a file in the XML format
+ specified at <url id="http://standards.freedesktop.org/shared-mime-info-spec/latest/";>.
+ </p>
+ </sect1>
</sect>
<sect>
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