Re: fmenu

On 02 Jan 2002, Robert Mibus wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-01-02 at 16:50, Robert Mibus wrote:
>
> Things I have in mind:
> * reading /usr/lib/menu
>
> The last point brings an interesting dilemma (IMHO): Do we even want
> to?
> It is the 'proper' place programs get installed, but there are
> problems
> mapping it to a PIM environment. Do we take the first level as the
> groups, the second level as the programs and ignore all others? (eg.
> PIM/* gets put in, but Utilities/Suspend/* won't). Note that this way
> will stop the terminal from being in the launcher. Or should it be
> left
> as it is, with a seperate menu?

Any menu program within Familiar should definitely take advantage of
the information in the /usr/lib/menu directory. This is the standard
mechanism by which package maintainers can create menu entries for
programs. It is already used by several "menu managers" within
Familiar, (gtk-menu, blackbox, icewm, etc.). There would be no benefit
in creating a new mechanism, (including the onerous task of expecting
the fmenu maintainer to maintain a comprehensive list).

That said, though, fmenu need not read directly from the /usr/lib/menu
directory. Instead, fmenu can provide a template from which its own
configuration file is automatically generated from the /usr/lib/menu
entries. The template should be placed in /etc/menu-methods/fmenu. You
can look in that directory for examples if you install any of
gtk-menu, blackbox, or icewm. The format should be quite self
explanatory, and it is extremely flexible. You should be able to deal
with all the potential problems you mention above, (ie. elimination
all categories deeper than the first level for example).

Feel free to probe me further if you have any questions.

-Carl

PS. Also, most of the menu entries in /usr/lib/menu do not currently
have icons listed. As a maintainer of several packages, I can say that
I would be glad to patch these if someone contributed icons.

-- 
Carl Worth                                        
USC Information Sciences Institute                 cworth_at_east.isi.edu
3811 N. Fairfax Dr. #200, Arlington VA 22203		  703-812-3725