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Title: Gentoo Menu System |
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Version: $Revision: 1.4 $ |
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Last-Modified: $Date: 2004/05/04 17:52:27 $ |
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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, 11-Dec-2003, 13-Dec-2003, 4-May-2004 |
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Definitions |
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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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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 is 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 that currently don't support these specs. So we are |
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trying to base our work on the specifications GNOME and KDE are going to use. |
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(These are no official standards but evolving specifications). This has the |
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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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Specification |
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============= |
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We are trying to follow these specifications: |
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* Desktop Entry Specification [9]_ |
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* Menu Specification [10]_ |
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* Icon Theme Specification [11]_ |
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There are two libraries that offer an API to these specifications: |
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* PyXDG [12]_ (written in python) |
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* Desktop File Utils [13]_ (written in C) |
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Our goal is to patch the WM's with the help of these libraries to support the |
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specifications. APP's then only have to install a .desktop entry [9]_ and |
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optionally an icon and will be listed in all menus. This installation could |
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easily be done by two portage commands (domenu, doicon). |
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Implementation / Status |
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======================= |
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This GLEP exists for a long time now, still it is not accepted. I will outline |
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the current status: |
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* KDE 3.2 (x86) supports this specification |
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* GNOME 2.6 (~x86) support this specification |
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* domenu[12_] has to be included in portage to be used by the ebuilds to |
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install a desktop entry |
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* Somebody needs to write patches for the other WM's: |
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We should focus on adding support to the following WM's first: |
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* xfce, blackblox / fluxbox / openbox / waimea / kahakai, icewm |
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* fvwm, windowmaker, enlightment, afterstep |
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The following are not so important, but support some kind of applications |
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menu: |
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* aewm / aewm++ / evilwm / windowlab / oroborus, amiwm, ctwm, flwm |
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* golem, larswm, pekwm, plwm, pwm, qvwm, selectwm, treewm, trwm |
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* vtwm, xpde |
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Credits |
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======= |
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Based on suggestions from former discussions on the gentoo bugzilla, |
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mailinglists and forums. |
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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/0.8/] |
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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] PyXDG |
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[http://www.freedesktop.org/software/pyxdg] |
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.. [13] Desktop File Utils |
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[http://www.freedesktop.org/software/desktop-file-utils] |
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.. [14] domenu |
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[http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25756] |
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Copyright |
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========= |
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This document has been placed in the public domain. |