On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 11:25:31AM +0100, Mathieu Roy wrote: | > What's your point? The window managers don't /need/ to be changed - or | > at least they shouldn't. They don't natively support Debian's menu | > system, they don't natively support .desktop files, and are unlikely to | > ever do either. The current Debian menu system, despite its faults, | > supports writing menus for weird formats that an arbitrary window | > manager (or other menuing system) might be able to read. | | I do not understand how can you, in one hand, say there no need for a | standard like .desktop for these window managers (well, this term is | questionnable - wmaker is, for instance, more than a windowmanager), | and, in another hand, talk about "weird formats" of different window | manager.
The situation /now/ is that /most/ window managers use their own unique format to handle their menus. Even the versions of KDE and Gnome currently in Debian, while both using .desktop files, store them in a different place and place them into menu hierarchies differently. A standard like .desktop or the Debian menu system we have now /is/ a good thing; we also need a way to make those menu hierarchies available to applications which cannot and will not read them directly (hence the "weird formats" that I mentioned). Currently, freedesktop provides the former but not the latter, so in order for freedesktop's scheme to be considered as a replacement for what we use now, there must also be a way to convert them into the format used by some arbitrary menu system. In practice, a way to convert existing menu entries into the new system, and ideally also a way to make use of existing menu-methods, would also be required. (I'm sorry, I was imprecise earlier: when I said "window managers" I was actually referring to any piece of software which displays a menu of applications available on the system.) | The point of .desktop is to avoid having "weird formats" to handle, | but only one. The point is that applications which provide menu entries don't need to care about about the format that a particular window manager may want that menu item in. Currently the Debian menu system provides one such standard format; another candidate is .desktop files. | If these environment needs the data, or part of the data, that can be | contained in .desktop (currently provided by the debian menu system), | why would it be stupid for them to be able to deal directly with | .desktop? Of course not. But a lot - in fact, the overwhelming majority - of these environments predate .desktop files, and are unlikely to change. They don't integrate directly with any menu system but their own. For new window managers (or or menu systems), I agree, it makes sense to use .desktop files for the appropriate menu, as they are more widely supported outside of Debian. | > If .desktops are ever to achieve prominence in Debian, we need to be | > able to do the same with those. | | Sure, as long as some environment will not support .desktop while | needing the data contained in .desktop, Debian will have to use | converters. I claim once again that this will always - at least for the forseeable future - be the case. Converters for the .desktop format don't yet exist; converters for the current system are in place and working right now for /every/ menu system in Debian ... with the exception of KDE and GNOME, where the Debian menu appears to be treated as a second-class citizen compared to the {GNOME,KDE}-specific menu. *sigh* | > There is no reason for Debian to do something merely because Red Hat | > does. | | Why do you assume that I want Debian to follow RedHat choice? [...] | Nobody proposed that. I do not see the point in arguing about a | non-existant proposal. In that case, why did you mention what Red Hat were doing? Cheers, Cameron.