From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 4.0.0 (2022-12-14) on finch.gentoo.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.2 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_ADSP_NXDOMAIN, DMARC_MISSING,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=4.0.0 Received: from wickidpisa.csh.rit.edu (wickidpisa.csh.rit.edu [129.21.60.147]) by chiba.3jane.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id F24DAAC3AA for ; Wed, 24 Jul 2002 10:08:07 -0500 (CDT) Received: from tom by wickidpisa.csh.rit.edu with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17XNkE-0001PR-00 for ; Wed, 24 Jul 2002 11:08:06 -0400 Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 11:08:06 -0400 To: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org Message-ID: <20020724150806.GA5414@wickidpisa.csh.rit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i From: Tom Philbrick Subject: [gentoo-dev] Automatic menus? Sender: gentoo-dev-admin@gentoo.org Errors-To: gentoo-dev-admin@gentoo.org X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Gentoo Linux developer list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: X-Archives-Salt: 2f5910cf-48a0-4421-839f-ca4163d5b3f1 X-Archives-Hash: e1a21c9dab55239a8143ed062132ded4 Searching the mailing list archives, I see that back in April someone asked about automatic menus. One reply said that it was already being worked on, while others said the opposite. Is anyone currently working on an automatic menu system for gentoo, and if so, what is its status? I ask because I am in the process of porting the debian menu system over to gentoo, but I realized I should stop and see if it is worth the effort. I have the program working as far as I can tell, although I haven't done much testing yet. It still needs a lot of work, but most of that is tailoring it to gentoo rather than debian (rewriting documentation, and making my hacks less of a hack). The build isn't pretty, I see now why debian is not a source distro, but it works for now and I'm working on cleaning it up. For those of you that have never used debian (or mandrake, as menudrake uses the debian menu system under the hood) you can read a good overview of it at: http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/menu.html/index.html For the system to work, it would require that every package that wants to use a menu must install a menu-method that describes how to generate a menu for that program (these can me borrowed from debian, or written from scratch). It also would require that every application that wanted to be in a menu include a simple menu file that describes what the menu entry should be. Yes that means a lot of packages would need to be updated, but the menufiles take about 30 seconds to write, and are simple enough for anyone to do. So what should I do? Post a new package bug now? Wait until it is completely done? Wait until a better time? Give up in favor of a more mature, or better, solution? -Tom Philbrick