automatically create menu entries

[Adam Weinberger]

>> (10.06.2004 @ 0710 PST): Roman Kennke said, in 1.5K: <<
> Hi FreeBSD-Gnome-list,
> 
> I've been using FreeBSD+Gnome for a while now and want to say first,
> that I'm very pleased with this.
> 
> One thing that I am missing is menu entries for common applications like
> Mozilla, Emacs, OpenOffice and so on. I would like to have this
> configured automatically. I have some ideas how to accomplish this:
> 
> 1. each application (port) is responsible for creating desktop entries
> in the /usr/X11R6/share/gnome/applications (?) directory. ok, not a very
> good solution. This could be supported by the ports system in some way.
> 
> 2. someone (maybe me) starts to create (or maybe there exists) a
> database of applications with their common binary locations and .desktop
> entries for them. Then it should be easy to scan a computer for these
> apps and include the desktop entries in
> /usr/X11R6/share/gnome/applications directory
> 
> 3. another cool system is Debians menu system. something similar could
> be implemented in the ports system. This again gives the ports
> developers some responsibility.
> 
> Such a system would not only be good for FreeBSD/Gnome but also for
> other Freedesktop.org compliant window managers and/or OSes.
> 
> Is there interest in such a system? Does something like this already
> exist in FreeBSD? Which approach would you like?
>> end of "automatically create menu entries" from Roman Kennke <<

I've been toying with the concept of a Makefile macro that will generate
desktop entries for ports that do not install them. I'll get moving on
that. It's the least portable option, however.

I think that if you're up to writing a program, you should either make
(a) a full-fledged GNOME menu editor, or (b) use your second suggestion
and make an app that also recognizes when a program has a desktop entry
but has been renamed and/or moved to a different category. I disagree
with the way that fluxbox-generate-menu overwrites the menu that you
already have.

# Adam


--
Adam Weinberger
adamw at magnesium.net || adamw at FreeBSD.org
adamw at vectors.cx    ||   adamw at gnome.org
http://www.vectors.cx