RE: "proprietary" vs. polluting (was Re: propriatary question)

[Gleef <gleef capital net>]

On Fri, 2 Apr 1999, Fox, Kevin M wrote:
> Point, and No point.... :)
> 
> What happens if, hmm.. lets say star office, wants to create a program...
> 
> they want one desktop file
> 
> lets call it office.desktop. (who cares about the real name)
> 
> where should they put it?   with kde?   with gnome?  with enlightenment?
> With what?

They have three choices (that I can see):

  * They can put it in their own directory, and count on whatever
    desktop/user to use it however they want, the office program isn't
    going to worry about it.

  * They can ask the user where to put it at install time.  

  * They can attempt to autodetect the existance of the environments
    they want to actively support, and put them in the approprate
    places for the detected environemtns.


> the resason you gave for putting them in the gnome directory is because you
> do not wish to force order on others. BUT, that is not exactly correct. The
> user can choose to order them how ever he/she sees fit. so, in effect, there
> are no limitations on order. Besides, even when gnome programs add there own
> desktops they choose where to put them... it is up to the programmer of the
> program and the end user to deside where they go... rewriting a program to
> scan in gnomes directory, enlightenments directory, kde's and what have you
> are just abunch more code. it is really unnessisary and burdunsome on the
> packager.

Which is more burdensome on the packager, having to know where GNOME
(and maybe up to a half dozen other .desktop using environments) put
their files?  Or having to fight with their competitors over namespace?

For example, if Star Office were to do an office.desktop, and KOffice and
Corel Perfect Office 2000 were to also do an office.desktop, there is
an installation problem.  Having GNOME's directory tree separate from
KDE's and other environments forces the install process to have some
intellegence to minimize such problems, whether it's intellegent
programs or user intervention.  While it is a burden on the packager,
I don't see it as an unnecessary one.


> The idea is to allow the user to deside (they can just reorder the desktop
> files in /usr/share/apps if they dont like to ordering) and the programmer
> to only have to wory about throwing there desktop file in one place for all
> environments /usr/share/apps

>From experience, you really can't just reorder the files in
/usr/share/apps if everything is installing themselves there.  Every
time you install upgrade a package, the package will try to force
itself where it thinks it should go in the menu tree.  If NOTHING is
installing itself there, you can use that directory to hold copies or
symbolic links to the .desktop files elsewhere, and keep control over
the directory structure.  Most package installers have very little
sympathy for user customizations.

-Gleef