More about "intents": Several improvements to desktop files and caches

[Jerome Leclanche]

On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 3:50 AM, Jasper St. Pierre <jstpierre at mecheye.net> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 9:52 PM, Jerome Leclanche <adys.wh at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 2:42 AM, Ryan Lortie <desrt at desrt.ca> wrote:
>> > hi,
>> >
>> Yes, that was my original idea with intents. I reconsidered after some
>> discussion though: It is much easier to use the existing Categories
>> key and improve upon it. Intents themselves can be dbus-only and the
>> same format as you mentioned, while improving Categories has the major
>> advantage that a lot of existing apps will be straight up compatible.
>> What do you think? Is there anything (non-dbus) in your Implements
>> idea that can't be solved by Categories? Keeping in mind that anything
>> that has a dbus interface might as well be an intent (or Implements,
>> or however it'd be called).
>
>
> Categories are a set of defined categories used for grouping in menu
> systems. They're fairly loosely defined, and I don't think they make a good
> fit for intents.
>
> "AudioVideo", "Utilities" and "Education" don't tell me anything about what
> the app is, or what its interface will be.
>
> Something more defined and explicit about what the app is and what it will
> provide is a much better base for a new system.
>
>> J. Leclanche
>> _______________________________________________
>> xdg mailing list
>> xdg at lists.freedesktop.org
>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
>
>
>
>
> --
>   Jasper

I know it can be a bit unclear, but I want to stress that most of
these changes are, although related, *separate*. As such, the changes
to categories (problems #1 and #2) are not directly tied to intents,
they just allow better enumeration.

There's of course the matter of more generic categories, which is
still fine. If you want to enumerate every "Education" software,
that's your deal. The idea is to


On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 3:59 AM, Ryan Lortie <desrt at desrt.ca> wrote:
> hi,
>
> On Sun, Jan 5, 2014, at 22:50, Jasper St. Pierre wrote:
>> Categories are a set of defined categories used for grouping in menu
>> systems. They're fairly loosely defined, and I don't think they make a
>> good fit for intents.
>
> They may be loosely defined in terms of what it means to be one, but
> they are very rigorously defined in terms of what the valid values are.
> The desktop entry spec refers you to the menu spec, which list them off:
>
>   http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html
>
> In a way, this is the exact opposite of what we're trying to do with
> Implements=, which aims to be openly extensible by anyone who wants to
> define their own interface, but very well-defined on an item-by-item
> basis.

What really bothers me is that Categories are really just.. already
there. It came up a lot while I was writing this. Apps already set
their own categories, and they'll keep doing so.
I see what you mean about categories not being "openly extensible"
though. My original wish was for an app dev to be able to just say
"this app is a TwitterClient".

What I'd suggest is recommend "X-Foo" categories as free to use.

>
> The intended usage is entirely different as well.  It's pretty clear
> that categories are entirely meant for grouping in menus (or similar
> things).
>
> It would also be very strange to see reverse-DNS style interface names
> listed alongside things like "Network" and "Graphics".
>
> I think a separate key is warranted.
>
> Cheers

J. Leclanche