I've thought about something in this line, too.

I'd like to propose a way to implement this feature:

1. Include in the ebuilds a new function to generate the appropriate 
menu files (*.desktop files?). Maybe pkg_postinst() could handle this. 
These files could be stored in the /var/db/pkg/<categoy>/<package>/ 
directory, which already exists for installed packages, and maybe inside 
another subdirectory, e.g. 'menus'.

2. Create a new feature in portage, e.g. 'menus', that can be enabled 
via make.conf:
FEATURES="... menus ..."
In the case that this feature is enabled, the menus are automatically 
created when the package is installed. Otherwise, the menu files are 
just left alone in /var/db/pkg/<categoy>/<package>/menus/.

3. Include a tool in gentoolkit to manually create the menus from the 
menu files if someone decides to start using them after having some 
packages installed. Another tool to remove the menus could also be of use.


Just an idea...

[]'s
Felipe.


Jon Nelson wrote:
> I agree, but think that the menu system (assuming that someday
> there is one) will be "activated" by installing menu (or
> gentoo-menu or whatever), and that individual ebuilds will still
> "install" their little 100 byte description files and so on, but
> that nothing will happen unless you install the menu program.
> 
> The way it worked in Debian was like that. Don't want menus?
> Don't install menu. After 9 years of running 'stable' and you
> *suddenly* have a burning need for menus?  install menu. Tada!
> 
> Note that menu (at least in Debian) is also capable of dealing
> with per-user menu entries.
> 
> After looking at the code, it may be worth doing one of the
> following:
> 
> a) taking the code as-is and just packaging it up (this has been
> done, but not committed to CVS)
> b) taking the code and modifying it for Gentoo
> c) learning from the code and re-implementing in Python (avoids
> problems with g++, g++3.x, and so on)
> 
> I'm in favor of (a) or (b) (they are really the same) in the
> short term, and (c) in the long term, but am not passionate
> about any of it, really.
> 


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