Re: PROPOSAL: a common menu system.

[Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>]

> Previously Adrian Schroeter wrote:
> > Is there any official document about this format ?=20
> 
> Attached.

I think we should forget about this format. Not because its bad but because
there are existing superior formats.

The KDE/Gnome people actually have a mostly interworking setup that unlike
the proposal is

o	Internationalised
o	Provides icon information
o	Has a common heirarchy across both gnome/kde
o	Has existing tools for merging them with several window managers
o	Has help texts
o	Handles mime items
o	Handles stuff being run in an xterm

The format is

[Desktop Entry]
String=value
..

The strings being either name=value or name[countrycode]=value

Thus we have

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Address Book
Name[da]=Adressebog
Name[es]=Directorio
Name[fr]=Répertoire
..

Each item has a 

name	-	What it is on the menu
comment - 	Longer form (eg for tooltip)
Exec	-	what to run
Icon	-	What icon to use for it on the menu bar. For patent reasons
		png files are preferred and they may have transparency.
Terminal-	1 if it runs in an xterminal
Type	-	What type of thing it is 'Application'

		[There are 'magic' types like save-session used internally to
		 the systems that we dont care about]

TryExec -	A binary to try running, if it fails then try the next one
		(this can be useful for things like generic 'Mail' apps)


The tools exist, the window systems can edit these and they basically 
interwork.

The tool part of the posted program may be sensible as where you put these
files is a more interesting question.

Alan