Re: desktop file summarization



On Wed, 2003-10-29 at 14:53, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-10-29 at 10:53, Dan Winship wrote:
> > So if functional names are better than project names, shouldn't the
> > startup splash screen just say "Desktop" instead of "GNOME"? Users don't
> > care what desktop they're running. :)
> 
> Yes, this is why on RHEL/Fedora the splash screen doesn't say GNOME. ;-)

Ok.

> That's why the HIG says "Name GenericName" I think.

The HIG doesn't really have any justification at all for its
recommendation here.  At least one HIG author has said it's wrong,
perhaps the others can chime in with their interpretations?

> > The convention on both Windows and Mac seems to be that "applications"
> > often have funky names but "utilities" almost always have obvious names.
> 
> Right. The exact line is a bit fuzzy but this really seems right.

Well, ok.  I don't find this a particularly strong argument myself, but
before we continue:

The point I really want to stress is that by going with the
Name/GenericName/(RealName) distinction in the .desktop file, we can
implement any of the proposals so far.  Let's say GNOME decides to go
with #2 (GenericName+disambiguation) in the menus by default.  Any GNOME
redistributor can easily change this to include Name+GenericName by
default instead.  Or even just Name if they wanted.

Putting all the information together in the Name field doesn't give the
people who want GenericName only any way to implement it.  Since again I
think the i18n issues have been solved (someone please say if they
aren't), then I don't see a reason not to at least move towards the
Name/GenericName/RealName separation.

So in summary, regardless of whether or not GNOME decides to use
GenericName only, I think we should at least make it possible.


Now, on to your argument: my response is basically - why should we do
this just because the "other" desktop does?  They have marketing issues
that we don't have to deal with.

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