Re: Updated menu proposal (v1.1)



On Thu, Jun 07, 2001 at 07:00:16PM -0600, Nils Pedersen wrote:
> Hi George,
> 
> Its not really my preference, but some distributions have menu 
> categories based on desktop, platform,
> even distribution. Would that mean that we need additional keywords like 
> kde, gnome, ximian, redhat,
> solaris, etc...

KDE and GNOME would be good for the standard set actually, though int he
proposal this is left open with the X- keywords, so things could still have
X-RedHat and X-Ximian or whatnot

> Perhaps internet or web is a better name than network?

Perhaps, I'm sort of torn on this, since there are non-internet type network
things.

> Database, service (i.e. shared services provided by system), and maybe 
> sysman (system management)
> are other keywords you could add.

Yeah ...

> Is the Favorites menu constructed differently?

It's not really part of the proposal as that's definately per user setting
and thus can just be implementation dependent.  Right now it's done by just
copying the .desktops into a user specific directory.

> Not necessarily related, 
> but how would I add a URL to
> the menu structure. Does there need to be a separate keyword for URL vrs 
> Application and Applet?

There is a Type=URL afaik, however a URL keyword is also a good idea

> This might be blue sky (or my lack of understanding), but if I'm in a 
> large corporation and I want a
> standard layout across all my desktops, how would I set it up? Can an 
> end user override this standard
> set.

Well since the actual layout is not part of this proposal, then no.  My
feeling on this is that first we agree on the fact that we have keywords and
the fact that we have a standard location (plus the path env var).  Then the
next step would be to talk about how to actually store the vfolders and if
this can be standardized soon as well.

Even if the layout is not standardized across KDE, GNOME.  I do plan for this
to be just an XML file stored somewhere and the "large corporation" could
just setup this file for all it's emplyoees.  The user can then change
the setup by using some sort of menu preference thingie.

> Also, some of Sun's customers completely wipe away the default CDE set 
> of menus (and why
> wouldn't they :-)) and create their own. With the new implementation you 
> are proposing, if the
> customer didn't like the results of standard GNOME menu builder engine 
> then they would have
> to hack their own, right? Whereas, today they would just have to edit a 
> text file?

No, precisely the opposite.  Currently you'd have to hack a bunch of things
to make that really work.  With the new scheme all you'd do is edit whatever
the file is that stores the vfolders, which in the gnome panel case (as
indicated above) will be an XML file.

The proposal doesn't really deal with that much.

The "menu builder engine" would be just something that takes a certain
definition file and builds the menus.  In fact it should be utterly trivial
for a corporation to create their own layout and vfolder setup, just by
editting and XML file, AND as a bonus, if a new app got installed on the
computer, the new icon would show up at the exactly right place according to
the custom setup.  For example the corporation could define a folder like:

"Things that will get you fired" -> QUERY: Game OR Amusement

And then when the user would install a game it would end up in that folder in
their menus automagically.

> P.S. I still like keywords or menu-keywords better, but since its not 
> end user nomenclature, i guess
> its not really a big deal for me.

MenuKeywords could be nicer then Categories.  But again this is really not
THAT important :)

George

-- 
George <jirka 5z com>
   You have the right not to be killed,
   Murder is a crime!  Unless it was done by a policeman or an aristocrat.
                       -- The Clash




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