Best way to catalogue menu items?

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musher0
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Best way to catalogue menu items?

#1 Post by musher0 »

Hello all.

As you hopefully all know, Puppy is NOT following the accepted list of
*.desktop Categories at
https://standards.freedesktop.org/menu- ... pas02.html

Or very loosely. Plus it has its own series of X-something categories.

I have a couple of questions.

1) How desirable is it to apply that Freedesktop list to Puppy?

1a) How desirable is it to rein in the imagination of Puppy devs, so that
when they write a *.desktop file for their app or script, it is consistent
with the Freedesktop.org List recommendations?

And if it is desirable, the next question is:
2) How feasible would it be?

As you may all know, I have been creating menus for various non-jwm
window managers for a few years, and this question has been in the back
of my head for a long time. Because of course, the stated "Category" of
an app or script has a big effect on where it will appear in the WM menu.

The Freedesktop categories do the job -- to a point.

Tonight I was working on a general menu for the waimea WM (for the n-
th time; waimea is a bit fussy about menus), and it occurred to me:

3) Why not put aside the Freedesktop List and think along the lines of
Home Apps, Business Apps, Leisure Apps, Universal Apps? Or some other
logic? I'm sure there is an obvious one looking at us in the face right now
and we are not seeing it.

It's like the difference between the old Dewey classification for books and
the Library-of-Congress system, in a way. Or lateral logic vs top-down
logic vs down-up logic. (Or whatever.)

In any case, your insight(s) on these things will be much appreciated.

BFN.
musher0
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"You want it darker? We kill the flame." (L. Cohen)

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technosaurus
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#2 Post by technosaurus »

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=70804
I ran into that idiocy when doing jwm tools ... See link above.
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

musher0
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#3 Post by musher0 »

Hi technosaurus.

Yeah, I know what you did about deriving another menu from the *.desktop Category.
It was the basis for my own work with menus.

However: sorry, that is not helpful if we wish to reflect on the logic of the menu
categories themselves.

Best regards.
musher0
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technosaurus
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#4 Post by technosaurus »

My categories and subcategories were based on the xdg specs... Xdg groups them.
I stopped trying to be compatible with puppy apps that ignore the specs and meant to intentionally break misbehaving apps to get them fixed.
I also localized the menu from the desktop files, but it only helps if the upstream ones aren't replaced by puppy specific ones.
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

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Flash
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#5 Post by Flash »

Personally I hate nested categories that hide all the programs and make me open each category to find the program I'm looking for. It's like putting everything I own in drawers just to make the house look neat. I'd rather have all the programs on display at once, similar to how I think Apple does it in their desktop. When your cursor touches a program's icon, that icon gets bigger.

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rufwoof
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#6 Post by rufwoof »

Flash wrote:Personally I hate nested categories that hide all the programs and make me open each category to find the program I'm looking for. It's like putting everything I own in drawers just to make the house look neat. I'd rather have all the programs on display at once, similar to how I think Apple does it in their desktop. When your cursor touches a program's icon, that icon gets bigger.
As Puppy has bloated with more 'admin' features, the more it locks you out of a good setup IMO.

With Rox panel for instance you can drag/drop files onto the icons to open the file using the icons program. jwm panel - nah! whilst you can add icons to the panel you can't drag/drop files onto them.

Rox pinboards are great, if you maximise a window and just flip pinboards its as good as multiple desktops. The only real need for multiple desktops is if you're running multiple monitors IMO. But again Puppy tends to work against you and can rearrange the desktop icons or choice of icons on the desktop ...etc.

What I try and do is have a rox panel overlaid with a jwm panel so part of the rox panel shows through and provides a place where I can drag/drop icons/programs into that panel, or drag/drop files onto the icons in that panel, but where the partial screen width jwm panel is also visible and blends in with the rox panel. Also once I've set multiple pinboards I strive to avoid using any of the puppy admin type choices (but in some cases they still slip through and screw things up). One pinboard for 'computer' can suffice for your system admin type functions, just have all the links to the various config files around along with text documents describing the config format etc. and you can tweak things to how you like. Another pinboard for your more common bookmarks, another for documents/home ...etc. and the need for a menu fades. So much so I don't have a menu button in the panel at all, however I do set the clock (far right) to be a root:3 menu action when clicked i.e. serves as a menu button for those rare cases when I do wish to scan through the menu lists for rarely used programs. But equally my first icons in the rox panel (far left) is a rox icon -- that opens up /usr/share/applications so all programs in the one window via a single click type action.
Attachments
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full width rox panel overlaid with three quarter width jwm panel
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phat7
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#7 Post by phat7 »

rufwoof wrote:Rox pinboards are great, if you maximise a window and just flip pinboards its as good as multiple desktops.
if you maximise a window you can't see the pinboard. What's the point of flipping?

musher0
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#8 Post by musher0 »

For the record:
"XDG" was the acronym for "X Desktop Group". It was the former name of
the current Freedesktop.org.

rufwoof? The subject of this thread is "cataloging menu items", not "ROX
pinboards"? TIA for sticking to the subject at hand. (Although I do follow
some of your logic, your argument belongs in its own thread, IMO.)

BFN.
musher0
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technosaurus
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#9 Post by technosaurus »

Speaking of Rox though, if we used Rox-directories with .DirIcon for the categories (and optionally subcategories) which contain links to the corresponding *.desktop files, we could have a "Menu" that is more usable for users that have trouble manipulating the mouse for traditional menus (such as those with Parkinson's).

On top of that, the AppInfo file and can be used along with AppRun to provide verbal menus via text to speech for vision impaired users.

The biggest win though is that the entire menu doesn't need to be regenerated when new apps are installed - the new app just gets added in the appropriate location.

It also allows you to easily swap out the window manager.
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

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