[PATCH] Menu Spec - Desktop specific menus

[James Richard Tyrer]

Waldo Bastian wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 September 2006 23:19, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
>> Bastian, Waldo wrote:
>>> This change codifies how to use different .menu files for
>>> different desktop environments. Some distributions currently
>>> already do this. This change will require them to set
>>> $XDG_MENU_PREFIX accordingly. They should also check that their
>>> distribution picks up the applications-merged directory
>>> correctly.
>>> 
>>> Current:
>>> 
>>> $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/menus/applications.menu This file contains the
>>> XML definition of the main application menu layout. The first
>>> file found in the search path should be used; other files are
>>> ignored. This implies that if the user has their own 
>>> applications.menu, it replaces the system wide one. (Though the
>>> user's menu may explicitly merge the system wide one.) Other menu
>>> files may exist, but are not specified in this document.
>>> 
>>> $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/menus/menu-file-basename-merged/ The default
>>> merge directories included in the <DefaultMergeDirs> element. By
>>> convention, third parties may add new <Menu> files in this 
>>> location. menu-file-basename means the "applications" from 
>>> "applications.menu" for example. So the merge directory would be 
>>> "applications-merged".
>>> 
>>> Proposed:
>>> 
>>> $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/menus/${XDG_MENU_PREFIX}applications.menu This
>>> file contains the XML definition of the main application menu
>>> layout. The first file found in the search path should be used; 
>>> other files are ignored. This implies that if the user has their
>>> own ${XDG_MENU_PREFIX}applications.menu, it replaces the system
>>> wide one. (Though the user's menu may explicitly merge the system
>>> wide one.)
>>> 
>>> Systems that offer multiple desktop environments and that want to
>>> use distinct menu layouts in the different environments can use
>>> differently prefixed .menu files. In this case the
>>> $XDG_MENU_PREFIX environment variable must be set by the system
>>> to reflect the .menu file that is being used.
>>> 
>>> For example if a system contains both the GNOME and the KDE
>>> desktop environments it can decide to use gnome-applications.menu
>>> as the menu layout in GNOME sessions and kde-applications.menu as
>>> the menu layout in KDE sessions. To correctly reflect this, it
>>> should set the $XDG_MENU_PREFIX environment variable to "gnome-"
>>> respectively "kde-".
>>> 
>>> Implementations may chose to use .menu files with other names for
>>> tasks or menus other than the main application menu. Such usage
>>> is not covered by this specification.
>>> 
>>> $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/menus/applications-merged/ The default merge
>>> directories included in the <DefaultMergeDirs> element of
>>> application.menu files. By convention, third parties may add new
>>> <Menu> files in this location to create their own sub-menus.
>>> 
>>> Note that a system that uses either gnome-applications.menu or 
>>> kde-applications.menu depending on the desktop environment in use
>>> must still use applications-merged as the default merge directory
>>> in both cases.
>>> 
>>> Implementations may chose to use .menu files with names other
>>> than application.menu for tasks or menus other than the main
>>> application menu. In that case the first part of the name of the
>>> default merge directory is derived from the name of the .menu
>>> file.
>>> 
>>> For example in a system that uses a preferences.menu file to
>>> describe an additional menu, the default merge directories
>>> included in the <DefaultMergeDirs> element in the
>>> preferences.menu file would become 
>>> $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/menus/preferences-merged/
>> I don't see the need for the environment variable since KDE knows
>> that it is KDE and GNOME knows it is GNOME.
> 
> The need is there when a third party application wants to understand
> which file to look at for a description of the menu.

Then perhaps XDG needs to provide a simple way to determine which
DeskTop is running.

> Or even when a GNOME application wants to do something with the menu
> while running under KDE, or vice versa.

Not sure about this.  Editing of the ".../xdg/menus/applications.menu" 
file should be limited to an administrative application run by root. 
Any other changes to the menu (additions) should be made by adding a 
file to the: "xdg/menus/applications-merged/" directory.

>> I still prefer my proposed solution which is to have multiple 
>> ".../xdg/menus/" directories with a suffix:
>> 
>> .../xdg/menus.kde/
>> 
>> .../xdg/menus.gnome/
>> 
>> and a global:
>> 
>> .../xdg/menus/
>> 
>> directory which would be used as a backup and/or for all desktops.
>> That is:
>> 
>> .../xdg/menus/applications.menu
>> 
>> would be used if there wasn't one:
>> 
>> .../xdg/menus.<desktop>/applications.menu
>> 
>> and the contents of the directory:
>> 
>> ../xdg/menus/applications-merged/
>> 
>> would be used for all desktops.
> 
> Yes, that's of course a valid alternative solution but so far
> distributions have chosen to use a scheme that only changes the name
> of the applications.menu file.
> 
>> I suggest this since it is possible that there would still be
>> conflicts in the files in:
>> 
>> .../xdg/menus/
>> 
>> Currently, GNOME has:
>> 
>> .../xdg/menus/applications.menu .../xdg/menus/preferences.menu 
>> .../xdg/menus/settings.menu
>> 
>> and the second and third are not GNOME specific names.
>> 
>> However, KDE does have KDE specific names:
>> 
>> .../xdg/menus/applications.menu .../xdg/menus/kde-information.menu 
>> .../xdg/menus/kde-screensavers.menu .../xdg/menus/kde-settings.menu
>> 
>> 
>> If we aren't going to have separate directories, perhaps the prefix
>>  requirement should apply to all files in the directory.
> 
> All other files in this directory are desktop specific so far I don't
> think there is a strict need for such requirement but it would be
> good practice to prefix any desktop specific .menu files, yes.
> 
>> It is also possible that it might be necessary to merge different
>> sets of applications-merged files for different desktops.  How do
>> you propose to address that?
> 
> If you have a desktop specific applications.menu file you can specify
>  addtional merge dirs in the .menu file for that specific desktop.

Yes, that would also work to create a private directory for the DeskTop.

I note that my suggestion is for a general solution which is not limited 
to this issue.  Whenever, different DeskTops would install different 
versions of the same file in the same directory that multiple instances 
of that directory can be created: "<directory>.<desktop>".

-- 
JRT