locale specific for .desktop

[Takao Fujiwara - Tokyo S/W Center]

Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:55:11 +0900 Takao Fujiwara - Tokyo S/W Center
> wrote:
> 
>>Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
>>
>>>I guess I still don't understand why this is necessary.  If a user 
>>>installs a piece of software that installs a .desktop file, my
>>>feeling here is that they want to be able to see it regardless of
>>>what LANG/LC_ALL is set to.  If it doesn't apply to their language
>>>at all, then why would they have installed the app in the first
>>>place?  If it's a distro-installed app that the user doesn't want,
>>>it should show in the menu so the user is aware of it and can
>>>uninstall it if he/she so desires.
>>
>>Some of the applications are used on one locale only, e.g. Chinese
>>dictionary application, Japan road map application. The situlation
>>is, those applications are used for one country only, the native
>>persons require to show the application by default, the native person
>>usually uses one locale only. But we don't have suitable applications
>>for all locales so the .desktop needs to be shown on one locale only.
> 
> 
> So why the need to hide it?  As a user, if I install something, I
> expect to see it in the menu[1].  To use your example, say I'm a
> native-English speaker who is learning to speak Chinese (which actually
> at one time was true).  I install the Chinese dictionary application,
> but... well, it doesn't show up, because my LANG is en_US.UTF-8.  I'm

Probably I don't understand this.
Do you mean the menu item is not shown in the panel menus when your $LANG env is en_US.UTF-8?
My understanding is if the .desktop file includes "Name=..." and "Name[zh]=", the .desktop is shown on all locales and the value of "Name[zh]=" is used for zh locales and the value of "Name=" for other locales.


> not going to quit my desktop session and restart in zh_CN (or zh_TW)
> just to see the app.
> 
> If I install this Japanese road map application, I expect to see it in
> my menu regardless of locale.  Say I live in the US, and I'm planning a
> trip to Japan in which I'm going to do some driving.  I install the
> road map app, but it doesn't appear in my menu.  As a user, I have no
> idea what's going on.

The idea of OnlyShowInLang can increase languages to modify the line, e.g. OnlyShowInLang=ja,ko,ru, but we want the default is the limited locale.

> 
> The bottom line of what I'm trying to say is this: if I install an
> application, I expect to see a menu item for it.  It shouldn't get
> hidden depending on locale, ever.  If I don't want to see a menu item
> for something for some reason, I'll edit the menu, or, if I don't want
> the app anymore, I'll uninstall it.

Probably I don't understand what you mean when you'll edit the menu.

> 
> So, I just don't see a need for this... unless I'm just grossly
> misunderstanding your use case for this feature?
> 
> 
>>>IMHO installing multiple .desktop files for an app (e.g. 1 per
>>>language for some number of languages) is foolish, and just slows
>>>down menu implementations.  The app itself should deal with the
>>>locale appropriately by examining environment variables.
>>>
>>>Personally, I'd prefer we didn't add complexity to the spec when
>>>the same functionality can be handled outside it.
>>
>>The problem is we don't have any way to handle this case.
> 
> 
> Perhaps, but I don't think this needs "handling," at least not in the
> way you're attempting to do it.  Applications that need to open
> different files or run different programs based on locale should figure
> it out on their own, and you shouldn't be hardcoding -- or
> parameter-expanding -- locales in the .desktop files for that purpose
> either.  A simple wrapper program/script that examines $LANG/$LC_ALL and
> opens the appropriate file is the way to go.
> 
> 	-brian
> 
> [1] The one case where I think it's ok to hide menu items for installed
> applications are, for example, the menu items for the various GNOME
> desktop settings applets while I'm running KDE or Xfce, or whatever.
> If I'm running one DE, I'd expect to want to configure that DE and
> not the others.  That's one of the reasons why we have OnlyShowIn.
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