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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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