Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Eric Sandall <eric AT sandall.us>]

Quoting evraire AT tuwg.com:
> Hello,
>   I still find there's a lacking in our distro in one small (yet significant
> IMHO) area: desktop environment menus.  What I mean by "desktop environment
> menus" is the main menu system you find under Gnome, Gnome2, KDE,
> Enlightenment, XFCE and other such systems that offer a place where 
> installed
> applications show up (ie: the Applications menu under Gnome2, the K under
> KDE, etc.)
> 
>   The problem I see is that installed applications don't always show up in
> the menu: some do, and some don't.  Sometimes they show up in one menu (KDE
> is particularly good), but not others (like Gnome2).  As an example of this,
> I've got firefox installed and IMO it should've added itself to the Internet
> sub-menu of my Applications menu automatically (I'm running a Gnome2
> desktop), but I needed to do so myself.  On the other hand, I just cast 
> xchat
> and it /did/ add itself to the Internet sub-menu!
> 
>   This is highly inconsistent and takes something away from the user
> experience of someone running our distro.  Adding this feature would add a
> significant degree of polish to running SMGL as a desktop system.  I realize
> this is more challenging than it sounds: different desktop environments use
> different methods for building their menus.  What happens if I decide to 
> move
> XChat from Internet to Chat?  Should my other desktop environments reflect
> that change?  Should the change be specific to the current user, or be
> reflected across the system (or have the option for both)?  What happens 
> when
> I next recast XChat?  Will it reinstall itself in the Internet menu, leaving
> me with two links?  Some spells install multiple binaries, but only one or a
> subset of those should appear in the menu... etc.
> 
>   I've started a feature request under bugzilla  
> (http://bugs.sourcemage.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6322) where I'd like to discuss
> with all of you how you think we should address this, or even if you think 
> we
> should address this at all?
> 
>   Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
> 
>   Jonathan Evraire
>   evraire at tuwg.com

The problem that I see is you're asking us to fix broken applications. The 
ones
that add themseves to the menus do so on their own, as they should, with no
extra work from us. The ones that don't are broken and bugs should be filed
against the owners of those packages.

However, we can probably still take a look at this. ;) You may want to check 
the
`scribbler` package and some of the MENU* entries in many of the DETAILS files
of spells as that was a start on fixing this problem.

-sandalle

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Eric Sandall                     |  Source Mage GNU/Linux Developer
eric AT sandall.us                  |  http://www.sourcemage.org/
http://eric.sandall.us/          |  SysAdmin @ Inst. Shock Physics @ WSU
http://counter.li.org/  #196285  |  http://www.shock.wsu.edu/

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