Bug#243375: kdelibs-bin: menu-method freedesktop should set the Generic Name Field to longtitle instead of title
Bill Allombert writes:
> On Sat, Jul 03, 2004 at 02:01:25AM +0200, Dominique Devriese wrote:
>> Bill Allombert writes:
>>
>> > On Mon, Apr 12, 2004 at 03:24:29PM -0500, Chris Cheney wrote:
>> >> There are two real bugs here that you have touched on though.
>> >> 1. Debian menu has no real concept of GenericName
>>
>> > Debian menu do not need to. You can use a generictitle field in
>> > menu file and set up menu-methods to use it.
>>
>> I was going to ask whether it might not be possible to mandate the
>> field in the menu policy, but after looking into the docs a bit, I
>> guess I need to first ask whether it wouldn't be a good idea to
>> mandate some (minimal) things the menu files need to contain ?
> The documentation is clear about that:
> <p> The fields <tt/needs/, <tt/section/, <tt/title/ and <tt/command/
> are mandatory. Other fields are optional. Custom fields are
> supported, so you can add new fields for you own purpose.
Right, I must have missed that. How about adding longtitle and
genericname to the mandated list ?
>> > You need a $generictitle, but we already have it. longtitle() do
>> > not exist and generictitle() is not needed, AFAICS.
>>
>> This seems very unclear to me. AIUI, you mean that we "already
>> have $generictitle" because the menu program and system don't need
>> any changes outside of the menu files and menu methods to support
>> the extra field ? AFAICS, quite some packages do have $longtitle,
>> so I think that saying that it doesn't exist is a bit strange. And
>> I don't
> OK this is a bit technical...
> What you need is a menu _variable_ ($foo). menu variable are created
> dynamically from the menu entries, so $generictitle will exist as
> soon as one menu entry provide a field generictitle="".
> A menu _function_ foo() is something unrelated. We have a
> user-defined title() function that let user choose between short
> titles and long titles in window managers, but we do not have a
> longtitle() function and I dont see what a generictitle() function
> would do either. title() is defined by in menu.h by either
> function title()=$title or function
> title()=ifelse($longtitle,$longtitle,$title) depending of user
> choice.
K, thanks for the explanation.
>> > Add to xdg-desktop-entry-spec-apps "GenericName=" $generictitle
>>
>> > And start to add generictitle="A Generic title" in menu files.
>>
>> Yeah, this is the easy part of the job. The hard part is of course
>> getting apps to provide the field.
> Well, yes.
If we'd add this to the policy and write a lintian check for it ( or
change the current menu file checks, if present ), that would help...
>> >> similiar to that. I look forward to the time when Debian will
>> >> convert to the freedesktop menu standards so that the
>> >> integration will be much smoother. :)
>>
>> > LOL
>>
>> Hm, I'm wondering about how serious people are taking this. I
>> would personally like to see Debian move ( in the long term, like
>> most Debian things ) to freedesktop menu standards, because those
>> have a much higher chance of being available in third party
>> software. This is of course not at all urgent, and I'm not
>> entirely sure it would be worth the extra effort. What do you
>> think about this ?
> I don't think it will happen, or even that it is a good idea. Most
> upstream .desktop (outside KDE or GNOME core) are made to advertise
> the software rather than trying to build a consistent menu
> structure.
Do you have examples of that ? Wouldn't it be the job of the people
packaging the apps to fixup their .desktop files ?
> I wonder if it would not be more worthwhile to keep the Debian menu
> as an 'omnibus' menu, and reserve the xdg menu for the desktop
> environnement. This way, the menu would provide a more consistent
> desktop experience.
I don't really agree with the difference between what you call "the
desktop environment", and other applications with menu methods. In
what way do these categories have different needs ?
cheers
domi
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