[desktop entry spec] new FullName key

[Francois Gouget]

William Jon McCann a écrit :
[...]
> Also, if we were to use parenthesis in English (and I don't think we
> should) we would want it to read "Ephiphany (Web Browser)".

So, stepping back just a bit, wouldn't it be pretty ugly if the Start 
Menu was full of parentheses:
      Ekiga (Softphone)
      Empathy (Instant Messenger)
      Epithany (Web Browser)
      Evolution (Mail)
      Iceweasel (Web Browser)
      Wireshark (as root) (Network Traffic Analyzer)
      ...

I realize that in English one could 'translate' "%1$s (%2$s)" to be 
"%1$s %2$s"; but, as mentioned before in this thread, other languages 
couldn't and would be stuck with the parentheses (or dashes which is 
pretty much the same). If the parentheses looked ugly in English, then 
they would be just as ugly in these other languages. So why condemn 
translations to ugliness?


Also, it seems that so far the only obstacle to concatenating Name and 
GenericName that has been considered is language aspects. But I'm not 
sure it always makes sense to concatenate both, even in English.

An example jumped at me in the above list: Evolution's GenericName is 
not 'Mail' or even 'Mail Reader', but 'Groupware Suite'. It appears in 
another location as 'Evolution Mail and Calendar', but would it make 
sense to set GenericName to 'Mail and Calendar' in that case?

For reference, on my system I have two files for Evolution:
   evolution.desktop
     Name=Evolution Mail and Calendar
     GenericName=Groupware Suite
     Comment=Manage your email, contacts and schedule
   evolution-mail.desktop
     Name=Evolution Mail
     # no GenericName
     Comment=Read and write emails

Another example would be Wireshark. From wireshark-root.desktop:
     Name=Wireshark (as root)
     GenericName=Network Analyzer
     Comment=Network traffic analyzer


So even in English I'm not sure it's always possible to choose a Name 
and GenericName pair that can both make sense when looked at 
individually, and when concatenated.


-- 
Francois Gouget
fgouget at codeweavers.com