Request to register a "Main" desktop Category: Electronics

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

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Felipe Ignacio Cañas Sabat wrote on 15/04/10 04:57:
> 
> On Fri, 2010-03-12 at 00:14 +0000, Peter TB Brett wrote:
>> 
>> Peter Brett <peter at peter-b.co.uk> writes:
>...
>>> Can you at least consider the addition of an "Engineering" main
>>> category?  Otherwise all engineering applications are going to be
>>> scattered between the equally-inappropriate "Graphics", "Education"
>>> and "Development" categories, which is clearly the Wrong Thing.
>...
> I'd like to say I'm in favor of creating an "Engineering" main
> category.
> 
> Also, in Debian "Science" is a main category. On the standard it
> appears as an additional category. Should "Science" be promoted to a
> main category as well? The same argument could be used for this, as
> applications for science are not quite in the same category as those
> for engineering, and are not always for educational purposes.
>...

In Ubuntu Software Center we've gone for a "Science & Engineering"
category that contains "Electronics", "Engineering", and "Mathematics"
subcategories among others. <http://imgur.com/HAEeI>

I'm in favor of "Electronics", "Science", and "Engineering" as top-level
categories, on the grounds that items that belong in each of them often
don't belong in any of the other top-level categories. Individual
directory systems could then group those top-level categories however
they like (whether in a single aggregate category as we have done, or as
separate top-level categories).

Meanwhile, earlier this year Canonical ran a series of card-sorting
sessions on what categories people put software in. We'll analyze the
results and publish them on this list in a few weeks, along with any
recommendations we have on changing the official categories.

Cheers
- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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