[gentoo-dev] Menu System

[gentoo-dev] Menu System

[Mario Andres Yepes C]

Just a Question.

Would'nt be a good idea to implement a menu system for window managers a la 
Debian??? 

Just a thought
Mario

Re: [gentoo-dev] Menu System

[Grant Goodyear]

On Wed, 2002-04-17 at 11:07, Mario Andres Yepes C wrote:
> Just a Question.
> 
> Would'nt be a good idea to implement a menu system for window managers a la 
> Debian??? 

Yep, and we've had people talk about it off-and-on for nearly a year
now.  It just hasn't been a priority for developers.  If you post
a request for it as an enhancement "bug" on bugs.gentoo.org at least
the idea won't get lost.  If anybody wants to take a stab at solving
the problem, feel free!

-g2boojum-

Re: [gentoo-dev] Menu System

[Jano Lukac]

Yes, it'd be nice.  Now get to work!

:P


Mario Andres Yepes C said:
> Just a Question.
>
> Would'nt be a good idea to implement a menu system for window managers
> a la  Debian???
>
> Just a thought
> Mario
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
> http://lists.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev

Re: [gentoo-dev] Menu System

[John Dee]

I think their default ones are fine. debian's has *TOO* many options, 
and can be confusing for newbies (I've seen it happen)

Jano Lukac wrote:
> Yes, it'd be nice.  Now get to work!
> 
> :P
> 
> 
> Mario Andres Yepes C said:
> 
>>Just a Question.
>>
>>Would'nt be a good idea to implement a menu system for window managers
>>a la  Debian???
>>
>>Just a thought
>>Mario
>>_______________________________________________
>>gentoo-dev mailing list
>>gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
>>http://lists.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
> http://lists.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev

Re: [gentoo-dev] Menu System

[Dan Armak]

On Wednesday 17 April 2002 18:07, Mario Andres Yepes C wrote:
> Just a Question.
>
> Would'nt be a good idea to implement a menu system for window managers a la
> Debian???
>
Azarah and me and some others discussed it on IRC a couple of days ago. We 
basically agreed that it should be done, so if you have any special 
requests/ideas/proposals, now's the time :-)

-- 
Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux developer (KDE)
Matan, Israel

Re: [gentoo-dev] Menu System

[Jon Nelson]

On Wed, 17 Apr 2002 20:23:06 +0300
Dan Armak <danarmak@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Wednesday 17 April 2002 18:07, Mario Andres Yepes C wrote:
> > Just a Question.
> >
> > Would'nt be a good idea to implement a menu system for window managers
> > a la Debian???
> >
> Azarah and me and some others discussed it on IRC a couple of days ago.
> We basically agreed that it should be done, so if you have any special 
> requests/ideas/proposals, now's the time :-)

Basically I think Debian has the best menu system around. 
Why not simply port it?

-- 
Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.

Jon Nelson <jnelson@jamponi.net>
C and Python Code Gardener

Re: [gentoo-dev] Menu System

[Martin Schlemmer]

On Wed, 2002-04-17 at 20:08, Jon Nelson wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Apr 2002 20:23:06 +0300
> Dan Armak <danarmak@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Wednesday 17 April 2002 18:07, Mario Andres Yepes C wrote:
> > > Just a Question.
> > >
> > > Would'nt be a good idea to implement a menu system for window managers
> > > a la Debian???
> > >
> > Azarah and me and some others discussed it on IRC a couple of days ago.
> > We basically agreed that it should be done, so if you have any special 
> > requests/ideas/proposals, now's the time :-)
> 
> Basically I think Debian has the best menu system around. 
> Why not simply port it?
> 

Details ?

-- 

Martin Schlemmer
Gentoo Linux Developer, Desktop Team Developer
Cape Town, South Africa

Re: [gentoo-dev] Menu System

[Mario Andres Yepes C]

I think thats the basic idea... The thing would be that portage should provide 
a couple of functions to easy the process of adding an entry to the menu.

Somethink like

add_menu(){
    mkdir -p ${MENUDIR}
    cat >> ${MENUDIR}/${PN} << EOF
?package(${P}):  section="$2" icon="$3" title="$4" longtitle="$5" needs="$1" 
command="oo$1" $mimetypes_item 
EOF
}

So in an ebuild you could have...

add_menu Applications/Games amor.png "A waste of cpu" "Amor, a game" x11

Of course this is just a quick idea, I think that the function could be better 
implemented so the way to call it is more straight forward.

Regards
Mario
	

El Mié 17 Abr 2002 13:08, Jon Nelson escribió:
> On Wed, 17 Apr 2002 20:23:06 +0300
>
> Dan Armak <danarmak@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > On Wednesday 17 April 2002 18:07, Mario Andres Yepes C wrote:
> > > Just a Question.
> > >
> > > Would'nt be a good idea to implement a menu system for window managers
> > > a la Debian???
> >
> > Azarah and me and some others discussed it on IRC a couple of days ago.
> > We basically agreed that it should be done, so if you have any special
> > requests/ideas/proposals, now's the time :-)
>
> Basically I think Debian has the best menu system around.
> Why not simply port it?

Re: [gentoo-dev] Menu System

[Tod M Neidt]

On Wed, 2002-04-17 at 17:29, Mario Andres Yepes C wrote:
> 
> I think thats the basic idea... The thing would be that portage should provide 
> a couple of functions to easy the process of adding an entry to the menu.
> 
> Somethink like
> 
> add_menu(){
>     mkdir -p ${MENUDIR}
>     cat >> ${MENUDIR}/${PN} << EOF
> ?package(${P}):  section="$2" icon="$3" title="$4" longtitle="$5" needs="$1" 
> command="oo$1" $mimetypes_item 
> EOF
> }
> 
> So in an ebuild you could have...
> 
> add_menu Applications/Games amor.png "A waste of cpu" "Amor, a game" x11
> 
> Of course this is just a quick idea, I think that the function could be better 
> implemented so the way to call it is more straight forward.
> 

Hi!

My thought on this issue would be the addition of a 'domenu' helper
script that could be a one line addition in the src_install function.

The 'domenu' script would cascade through the desktop USE variables
(i.e. gnome, kde, etc , might have to add some for other desktops that
don't already have a USE variable.)  If the USE variable for a
particlular desktop is set then insert a menu item.  for example (off
the top of my head, so illustrative, not ncessarily working),

if use gnome; then
    if [ -e ${FILESDIR}/${PN}.desktop]; then
	SUBMENU=$( grep Type $

Re: [gentoo-dev] Menu System

[Jon Nelson]

On 17 Apr 2002 22:41:27 -0500
Tod M Neidt <tod@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Wed, 2002-04-17 at 17:29, Mario Andres Yepes C wrote:
> > 
> > I think thats the basic idea... The thing would be that portage should
> > provide a couple of functions to easy the process of adding an entry
> > to the menu.
> > 
> > Somethink like
> > 
> > add_menu(){
> >     mkdir -p ${MENUDIR}
> >     cat >> ${MENUDIR}/${PN} << EOF
> > ?package(${P}):  section="$2" icon="$3" title="$4" longtitle="$5"
> > needs="$1" command="oo$1" $mimetypes_item 
> > EOF
> > }
> > 
> > So in an ebuild you could have...
> > 
> > add_menu Applications/Games amor.png "A waste of cpu" "Amor, a game"
> > x11
> > 
> > Of course this is just a quick idea, I think that the function could
> > be better implemented so the way to call it is more straight forward.
> > 
> 
> Hi!
> 
> My thought on this issue would be the addition of a 'domenu' helper
> script that could be a one line addition in the src_install function.
> 
> The 'domenu' script would cascade through the desktop USE variables
> (i.e. gnome, kde, etc , might have to add some for other desktops that
> don't already have a USE variable.)  If the USE variable for a
> particlular desktop is set then insert a menu item.  for example (off
> the top of my head, so illustrative, not ncessarily working),

The problem with that approach is that if you later decide to use gnome,
you would have to re-emerge everything to get its menu entry.
Having each program place its menu entry (or entries) in a central
location (ala Debian, again), and then having a post-process program
zip through and create the KDE, GNOME, AfterStep, BlackBox, and
so on "system" menus sounds better to me.

Porting the "menu" package from Debian shouldn't be hard at all.

-- 
Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.

Jon Nelson <jnelson@jamponi.net>
C and Python Code Gardener

Re: [gentoo-dev] Menu System

[Tod M Neidt]

On Wed, 2002-04-17 at 23:07, Jon Nelson wrote:
Hi!

My post got mangled and was incomplete. I'm appending it whole :)
> 
> The problem with that approach is that if you later decide to use gnome,
> you would have to re-emerge everything to get its menu entry.

Only if gnome wasn't in the USE.  But that is a good point, if gnome is
added to the USE later. But then a separate stand alone script could be
made to parse /var/db/pkg/  and just merge any menu items not present
that would be with the new USE variable (ok maybe I'm stretching abit :)

> Having each program place its menu entry (or entries) in a central
> location (ala Debian, again), and then having a post-process program
> zip through and create the KDE, GNOME, AfterStep, BlackBox, and
> so on "system" menus sounds better to me.

Except from my experience debians menu system becomes a complete mess. 
Having to drill down through multiple submenus to get to what you want. 
I, personally don't care for that.

The advantage to this implementation, is that the menu item is inserted
into the existing submenus categories.

Regards,

tod

Full previous post (for what its worth):

Hi!

My thought on this issue would be the addition of a 'domenu' helper
script that could be a one line addition in the src_install function.
For example,

src_install() {

	make blah blah install || die
	 
	dodoc blah blah

	domenu

}


The 'domenu' script would cascade through the desktop USE variables
(i.e. gnome, kde, etc , might have to add some for other desktops that
don't already have a USE variable.)  If the USE variable for a
particlular desktop is set then insert a menu item.  for example (off
the top of my head, so illustrative, not necessarily working),

if use gnome; then
    if [ -e ${FILESDIR}/${PN}.desktop]; then
	submenu=$( grep Type ${FILESDIR}/${PN}.desktop | \
	sed "s:\(Type=\)\([[:alpha:]]*\).*:\2:" )
	insinto /usr/share/gnome/apps/${submenu}
	doins ${FILESDIR}/${PN}.desktop
    fi
    if [ -e ${FILESDIR}/${PN}-logo.*]; then
	insinto /usr/share/pixmaps
	doins ${FILESDIR}/${PN}-logo.*
    fi
fi

Presumably, someone familar with the other desktop environments menus
could work up a similar section for those. 

Re: [gentoo-dev] Menu System

[Jon Nelson]

On 17 Apr 2002 23:22:45 -0500
Tod M Neidt <tod@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Wed, 2002-04-17 at 23:07, Jon Nelson wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> My post got mangled and was incomplete. I'm appending it whole :)
> > 
> > The problem with that approach is that if you later decide to use
> > gnome, you would have to re-emerge everything to get its menu entry.
> 
> Only if gnome wasn't in the USE.  But that is a good point, if gnome is
> added to the USE later. But then a separate stand alone script could be
> made to parse /var/db/pkg/  and just merge any menu items not present
> that would be with the new USE variable (ok maybe I'm stretching abit :)
> 
> > Having each program place its menu entry (or entries) in a central
> > location (ala Debian, again), and then having a post-process program
> > zip through and create the KDE, GNOME, AfterStep, BlackBox, and
> > so on "system" menus sounds better to me.
> 
> Except from my experience debians menu system becomes a complete mess. 

Can you elaborate on that? I came to Gentoo after many years with
(primarily) Debian at home, and RedHat and others at work. I've not
experienced any kind of issues with the menuing system with Debian,
unlike RedHat (whose menuing system is utterly worthless).

> Having to drill down through multiple submenus to get to what you want. 
> I, personally don't care for that.

That is a detail that doesn't have anything to do with the mechanism, 
but the policy surround the the contents of the entries should be.

> The advantage to this implementation, is that the menu item is inserted
> into the existing submenus categories.

Where the menu is inserted has nothing to do with how or when the 
entries are stored or processed. Only how.

Additionally, your proposed mechanism has the significant disadvantage
of having to know how to process ebuild files, versus just knowing how
to handle menu entries.  Have you ever looked at how Debian handled
their menuing system?  It's a far superior approach than any I've ever
seen before.

Let me say what I want to say using different words:
I feel that Debian has the best *technical* approach to menu systems. 
The contents of the menu entries is somewhat irrelevant at this stage.
Here's how it works:

each program that wants to provide a menu entry, provides a so-called
"menu" file that contains menu entries, in a sort of meta-data format, for
each item it wants in the menu, incl. Categories, etc...

additionally, programs like afterstep, flwm, fvwm, windowmaker, and
environments like gnome and kde, provide so-called menu-interpreter
files, which together with the menu program understand enough of the
menu entries to be able to form their *own* menus, in the *own* format.

The very strong advantage of this mechanism becomes clearer when one
has many window managers, and gnome, kde, or both.  No matter which
WM or environment they choose, the menu entries are the same and are
handled in the 'native' means by their favorite program.

I wrote the menu handling code myself for AfterStep, and it has served
well for several years.

One thing I could always count on with Debain, besides rock-solid
stability, was that the menuing system *worked* and it contained almost
every relevant user-runnable program in a clear, easily understandable
format regardless of which environment or WM I was in.  That can be an
incredible boon to new users, especially those that are used to the 'start
menu' philosophy.

-- 
Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.

Jon Nelson <jnelson@jamponi.net>
C and Python Code Gardener