Re: My Little Wish List for Gnome

[Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows brown edu>]

On Wed, Jan 13, 1999 at 09:06:37AM -0700, Quantum Seep was heard to say:
> This would probably not fit in with the way menus work in GNOME, since it
> uses one file for all the desktop settings.  Nevertheless, take a look at
> it and see if it doesn't fix some of the issues we've been discussing.
> 

  This is a very neat idea..in my opinion.. :-)  Actually, I think the best
way to handle this if you decided to implement it would be for the menu parser
to scan and parse all the menu files it could find in a specified order, with
later menu entries overriding earlier ones.  Anyway:

> Here I present an example system default desktop configuration file,
> showing menu entries.  Each menu entry has a logical name, and a location
> specified relative to the other menu entries.
> 
> ----------
> 
> [Internet]
> location=/Internet
> type=menu
> 
> [Browsers]
> location=[Internet]/Browsers
> type=menu
> 
> [Netscape]
> location=[Browsers]/Netscape
> type=command
> command=/usr/local/bin/netscape
> 
> [Grail]
> location=[Browsers]/Grail
> type=command
> command=/usr/local/bin/grail
> 
> [Editors]
> location=/Editors
> type=menu
> 
> [vi]
> location=[Editors]/vi
> type=command
> command=/usr/bin/vi
> 
> [ReadMail]
> location=[Internet]/Read Mail
> type=CORBA
> name=/GNOME/mail/user/box
> method=view
> 

  I really like the [Internet] business--I was having trouble with how to
rename an entire subtree, but I think that you could do it here with:
[Internet]
location=/Network

  right?

> 
> (Notice the neat little CORBA invocation that uses the Name Server.)  This
> system default menu has two submenus: Internet and Editors.  Internet has
> a submenu for Browsers and for Mail.  Each of these menus has some
> application menu items.
> 
> Now suppose the user doesn't like the Browsers being under the "Internet"
> menu, and doesn't want the "Grail" item to appear at all?  Here is the
> user's personal desktop file:
> 
> ----------
> 
> [Browsers]
> location=/Browsers
> 
> [Grail]
> show=no
> 
> ----------
> 
> Simple, eh?  The Internet menu will still be there, with the option "Read
> Mail," but the Browsers menu will be at the root, and with only the
> "Netscape" command.
> 
> This has the advantage that if the administrator adds commands, they will
> be made immediately available to the end user, who can then chose to move
> or hide them at will.  Of course an option could allow hidden items to
> appear as grayed out so they could be rearranged or re-enabled.

  Also, there isn't any restriction on directory structure.  I think that
the Gnome menus should stop using directories for submenus and do something like
this; it's much cleaner and more flexible.  It's less intuitive in the sense
that the file manager can't be used to edit menus, but the menu editor should
be able to be written to do this. (I think..)

-- 
  Daniel Burrows

  Nothing is hopeless.

  PROOF:
(a) Assume the opposite.
(b) If something _is_ hopeless, then its condition can only improve.
(c) If its condition can only improve, then there must be hope for it.
(d) Therefore, nothing is hopeless.  QED.

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