Hi, Scott James Remnant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, 2004-05-17 at 14:19 +0300, Žygimantas Augilius wrote: > > Maybe debian-desktop or debian-gtk-gnome could decide, which > > applications should be included in Gnome menu? > > > Speaking from the peanut gallery; I only want to see GNOME applications > in the GNOME menu. The correct solution for non-tech people is to > ensure there's a GNOME app/shell that does the job of the one they're > lookingfor.
Which application is a GNOME application and who decides this ? If some software uses some gnome libraries (for example GTK+) can someone call this a GNOME application? On the other hand - why users should find easily not user-friendly application, based on GTK+, but hardly to find user-friendly application, based on other libraries, like SDL or xlibs ? For example now in Gnome menu at Application->Graphics category there is TuxPaint (funny painting program, using SDL), Sodipodi, Inkscape (vector drawing programs, using GTK+), Eog image viewer, gThumb image viewer and The Gimp (all based on GTK+), but lots of other useful and user-friendly programs, like gliv (image viewer, based on GTK+, that uses gdk-pixbuf to load images, and OpenGL to render them) aren't in GNOME menu. Who decided, that TuxPaint, Sodipodi or gThumb is GNOME program, but gliv isn't ? Same with Internet and other categories, for example in Internet there are lots of browsers, like Mozilla, Galeon, Epiphany, Firefox, Encompass, but there are no Dillo browser (which is based on GTK+ like others). Another example is TVtime television viewer - it has no GNOME libraries (uses xlib directly), but is included in main Gnome (and KDE) menu at Multimedia category and lots of users like this, because it is the best (and very user-friendly) TV Viewer. It seems that the current situation is just accidental - if upstream authors include .desktop file, then in most cases maintainer of debian package will not remove this file, so this software will be visible in main Gnome menu (or other environment, which supports freedesktop.org standard, like KDE); if upstream doesn't provide .desktop file but debian maintainer or someone else makes this file (and maintainer does include this file in deb package), then software is visible in Gnome or KDE again; but if debian package maintainer don't want to include .desktop file - software isn't visible in Gnome or KDE. So, why package maintainer (which in lots of cases doesn't use Gnome or KDE) has the right to decide to include some software in main Gnome (or KDE, etc.) menu or leave this software visible only in Debian submenu ? One man decides for thousands users!!! I think this situation is bad, because users or developers, who really use this environment and some applications can't decide where these applications in menu of environment are located. I think namely these users or developers should decide to make applications easily accesible in some environment or not. For example most of gnome desktop users and developers agree, that very kde-specific applications (like KDE-Control-Center) shouldn't be in main GNOME menu, because only few people will start KDE-Control-Center from Gnome :) But in other cases, when application (or game) aren't specific to any desktop environment some group should decide to include this application in main Gnome menu or to leave in Debian submenu. I know, that some people don't wanna see lots of programs directly in Gnome menu, because some programs they use very rarely. So, if they don't use these programs, why they keep these programs installed on their system ? Also I know, that most of users wanna find easily the sofware, which they have just installed, but in current situation it's very hard to find recently installed programs for non-tech people, because they don't know in which menu and in which category to look for (for example Xine movie player is in main GNOME menu at Multimedia category, but in Debian menu at Apps->Viewers Category). If leater people find out, that they use this software very rarely - they can manually remove this program from main Gnome menu or remove this software from their system until next time they need it. Finally, my suggestion is simple - we should make like most of users want :) -- Good luck, Mantas KriauÄiÅnas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Jabber ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Public organization "Open Source for Lithuania" - www.akl.lt
