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GLEP: 16 |
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Title: Gentoo Menu System |
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Version: $Revision: 1.0 $ |
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Last-Modified: $Date: 2003/09/27 22:00:00 $ |
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Author: Heinrich Wendel <lanius@gentoo.org>, |
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Status: Draft |
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Type: Standards Track |
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Content-Type: text/x-rst |
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Created: 09-Sep-2003 |
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Post-History: 04-Oct-2003 |
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Definitions |
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============ |
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*APP* |
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A graphical application that should be listed in the menus. |
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*WM* |
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A program containing a menu manager (i.e. a program that can display a menu, e.g. a windowmanager). |
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*rule file* |
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A python script that describes how to build the menu for a WM. |
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Abstract |
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======== |
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This GLEP handles a proposal for the following two goals: |
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* Create a common menu layout, which would be independent of the WM. |
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This point sound quite important for those people who use more than one WM. |
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* Provide a common way to add applications to the menus. |
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Motivation |
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========== |
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GNOME, KDE, Fluxbox, to name only a few, have all their own ways of handling |
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menus. There have been several requests [1]_ [2]_ [3]_ [4]_ [5]_ [6]_ from |
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users to streamline these menus. Furthermore there are several bug reports |
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about applications not having a menu entry [7]_, but since there is not |
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standard way to create such an entry, they are just sitting around in |
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bugzilla. |
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Rationale |
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========= |
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The idea of a common menu system is not new to the Linux world, every big |
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distribution (Debian, Mandrake, RedHat, Suse) has such a system. The big DE's, |
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KDE and GNOME, with the help of freedesktop.org [8]_ are also trying to |
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implement one standard. That will most likely happen in GNOME 2.6 and KDE 3.2 |
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(Currently they are only implementing different versions of the |
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desktop-entry-spec, but interpreting it in an incompatible way). But there |
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are still many other WM's around that are not going to follow these specs in |
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the near future. So we are trying to base our work on the specifications GNOME |
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and KDE are going to use. (These are no official standards but evolving |
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specifications). This has the following advantages: |
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* follow specified standards |
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* i18n support |
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* provide the necessary flexibility and modularity |
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* integrate with small changes to our ebuildtree. |
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* support for per system and per user menus |
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This system will be completely optional, nobody will be forced to use it! |
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Here an short overview, how it is supposed work: |
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1. Every APP installs a .desktop file. |
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2. Every WM installs a rule file. |
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3. There is a file which specifies the menu layout. |
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4. A script is run and parses all rule and .desktop files and the menu |
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layout and creates the corresponding menus. |
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We also intent to include a graphical editor for the menus, but this is not |
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the primary priority. |
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Specification |
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============= |
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1. What packages with an APP should do |
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-------------------------------------------- |
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1.1 .desktop file format |
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''''''''''''''''''''''''' |
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If you want users to be able to find your application you have to create a |
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menu entry in the following format:: |
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[Desktop Entry] |
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Encoding=UTF-8 |
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Type=Application |
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Name=KWord |
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GenericName=Word Processing |
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GenericName[it]=Textverarbeitung |
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Categories=Application;Office;Wordprocessor |
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Icon=kword |
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Exec=/usr/kde/3.1/bin/kword |
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This example does not show all translations of the name and comment, but you |
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can see the format of the file and translations from it. The Categories field |
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specifies which menu group the application should appear under. In this |
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example, the entry is under System Tools. |
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The file should follow the xdg desktop-entry spec 0.9.4 [9]_. The Categories |
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field is used as described in the menu-spec 0.7 [10]_. |
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1.2 Validating the file |
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'''''''''''''''''''''''' |
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We will provide a tool (possibly included in repoman) which will validate |
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.desktop files. |
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1.3 Icon |
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''''''''' |
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There are two possibilities to install an icon for the application. |
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1. You install an icon in /usr/share/pixmaps and specify the absolute path to |
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the file in the .desktop file. |
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2. You install the file as part of an icon-theme [11]_ and specify the name of |
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the icon in the .desktop file. Possible icon-themes are: |
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* default.kde |
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* gnome |
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* gentoo |
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The preferred format for icons is png with transparent background. |
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1.4 Modifying the ebuild |
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''''''''''''''''''''''''' |
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To actually install this file, you have add it to the filesdir of the ebuild. |
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The extension has to be .desktop. Then change the ebuild to contain a line |
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similar to this: "domenu ${FILESDIR}/file.desktop". |
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2. What packages with a WM should do |
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--------------------------------------------- |
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Each WM should provide a rule file in /usr/share/menus/wms which follows a |
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specific format. Documentation for this format has still to be written, You |
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can find examples at [12]_. |
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3. The Menu layout file |
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------------------------- |
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The format of the menu layout file will follow the xdg menu-spec 0.7 [10]_. |
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Gentoo will provide a default menu structure. You can find the current |
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proposal at [14]_. |
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4. Customizing the menus |
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------------------------ |
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Customizing of this system can be done in two ways, system-wide or user-wide. |
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The locations of the files follow the xdg basedir-spec 0.6 [14]_. |
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4.1 Changing the default menu layout |
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'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' |
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The system menu layout is located in /etc/menu/applications.menu, it can be |
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overridden by $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/applications.menu. |
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4.2 Adding own WM files |
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''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' |
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The system WM files are located in $XDG_DATA_DIRS/menu/wms/, they can be |
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overridden or extended by $XDG_DATA_HOME/wms/. |
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4.3 Adding own menu entries |
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''''''''''''''''''''''''''' |
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The system .desktop files are located in $XDG_DATA_DIRS/menu/applications/, |
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they can be overridden or extended by $XDG_DATA_HOME/menu/applications/. |
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Drawbacks |
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========= |
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A concern might be that it involves a changing a lot of ebuilds (every APP |
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needs to be changed). There has been a proposal for another solution that |
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generates menus from the current menu structures of GNOME/KDE. This would have |
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the advantage of not changing the ebuilds, but the disadvantage of not being |
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very flexible. A menu layout file or per system/users menus would not be |
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possibly. It seems more like a quick and dirty solution. Consider that we |
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don't have to provide massive file-updates, global lists coherent with our |
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tree, but each capable and installed package requires a small change that goes |
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back and forwards with versions without overhead for version bumps. |
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Backwards Compatibility |
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======================= |
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People who want to use the new system have to recompile all packages that use |
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the "gentoo-menu" USE flag. This could be easily done by a tool that will parse |
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/var/db/pkg and for all ebuilds find corresponding updates with menu info. |
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Since nobody is forced to use this system, there are no other backward |
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compatibility issues, you just have to disable the "gentoo-menu" USE-Flag and |
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you'll get the vanilla situation. |
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Reference Implementation |
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======================== |
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The reference implementation is nearly finished, it's written in Python, you |
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can find it here [15]_ [16]_. It contains a sample menu layout |
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(/etc/menu/applications.menu), the domenu script, the update-menus script and |
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the gentoo icon theme. |
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Domenu has to be included in Portage, it will install new menu entries in |
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/usr/share/menu/applications and run the update-menus script afterwards. |
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Update-menus parses the menu layout file, the .desktop files and the rule |
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files and then creates the menus. If run as user it will create menus only for |
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that user, if run as root it will create system wide menus. |
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Credits |
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======= |
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Based on suggestions from former discussions on -dev and the Debian |
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menu-system documentation [17]_. |
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References |
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========== |
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.. [1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5510 |
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.. [2] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10429 |
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.. [3] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4884 |
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.. [4] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25797 |
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.. [5] http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=66754 |
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.. [6] http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=263106#263106 |
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.. [7] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25756 |
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.. [8] http://www.freedesktop.org |
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.. [9] Desktop Entry Specification |
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[http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/desktop-entry-spec/0.9.4/] |
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.. [10] Menu Specification |
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[http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu-spec/0.7/] |
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.. [11] Icon Theme Specification |
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[http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/icon-theme-spec/0.7/] |
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.. [12] Example rule files: |
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[http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/gentoo-menu/examples/?cvsroot=gentoo-src] |
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.. [13] Reference menu layout |
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[http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/gentoo-menu/etc/applications.menu?cvsroot=gentoo-src] |
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.. [14] Basedir Specification |
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[http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/basedir-spec/0.6/] |
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.. [15] PyXDG |
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[http://cvs.cojobo.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/pyxdg/] |
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.. [16] Gentoo-Menu |
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[http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/gentoo-menu/?cvsroot=gentoo-src] |
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.. [17] Debian Menu System documentation |
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[http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/menu.html/] |
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Copyright |
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========= |
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This document has been placed in the public domain. |
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