Re: hats off + app-finder

[Hawlisch Martin <hawlisch roxi rz fh-mannheim de>]

On 10 Dec 1998, Alan Shutko wrote:

> >>>>> "G" == Greg Fall <gmf@dweezil.dynip.com> writes:
> 
> G> Could somebody explain the 5WH about GNOME finding applications,
> G> and add any comments w/r/t how it could be improved?
> 
> Hmmm... I'm not sure how it could be improved other than getting more
> things to use it.  8^)  Here's how it works (and if I am wrong on
> something, please correct me.)
> 
> Under the share directory, you have "apps".  Under that are a lot of
> directories corresponding to panel submenus.  In each directory, there
> are multiple .desktop files.  For example, under my Graphics dir are
> GIMP.desktop and ee.desktop.  These files list the icon, the program
> name, and other properties about the program (including a way to test
> if the program is installed).
> 
> So, for an app to show up on the GNOME menus once it's installed, all
> it should need is for the RPM to include a app.desktop file and put it
> in the right place.  For non-GNOME apps, we may want to start
> including more and more .desktops somewhere in the GNOME distribution,
> so that they'll appear on the menu if they're installed (that test
> property I mentioned above).  It's pretty easy to set these things up,
> and all you'd need to add is an (optional) icon for each, the .desktop
> file, and the category in the menus it should appear.
> 

On DEBIAN there is a configure script called update-menus. Using different
configuration files it creates App menus for various WM, and GNOME. You
can configure it to update a CVS version at any install location.
Maybe something similar could be included into GNOME.

+-------------------------------------------+
| Martin Hawlisch                           |
| http://freddy.rz.fh-mannheim.de/~hawlisch |
+-------------------------------------------+