joost witteveen wrote: > I've just released menu-2.0. It has many new features, one of > wich is the automatic optimization of the menu tree, using > something I've called "hints". This is what I want to start > discussion about with this message.
Wow! You've utterly bypassed the whole policy issue with a brilliant idea! > The hints actually work in a rather strange way: when > hint_optimize=true (in the config file) then all $section > elements (like "section=Apps/Editors", in the menuentry file) > are added to the specified $hints variable (new variable in the > menuentry file, could be "hints=Bulky,Expert,Serious" for Emacs). > The order (/Apps/Editors or /Editors/Apps) of the resulting hints > is completely ignored. So does this mean it gets hints=Apps,Editors,$hints and Apps and Editors are two separate hints that are not related anymore? > Although this procedure ignores the real debian tree (so much > discussed about), it does eventually come up that look surprisingly > like just that tree. Can you post an example? The thing I'm concerned about is consistency accross machines (and across upgrades). It sounds like this can generate many possible trees that, while optimal, are very different depending on what's installed. Which means that a user who is familiar with the menus on one system might be completly lost on another. They'll see some familiar menu names, but in different places, and they'll see some unfamiliar items as well. For example, they'll be used to going to Apps/Sound for something and it'll be Apps/Multimedia on this other system. Keep in mind that a big advantage of the current system is you can sit down at any Debian machine, anywhere, and go directly to the item you want, once you know the menu hierarchy. But maybe it really works out so this isn't a problem? -- see shy jo
