[RFC] A trivial change for DESKTOP_ENTRIES (take 2)

Jung-uk Kim jkim at FreeBSD.org
Thu Jul 14 19:47:53 UTC 2011


On Thursday 14 July 2011 03:15 pm, Pav Lucistnik wrote:
> Jung-uk Kim p紫e v �t 14. 07. 2011 v 15:07 -0400:
> > > > entry.  I assume that the filename of the desktop entry is
> > > > unimportant,
> > >
> > > The filename of desktop entry should be 100% inconsequential,
> > > and our only care should be not have two ports installing same
> > > file.
> >
> > I believe the original intention was to use executable name to
> > make desktop file, i.e., ${PREFIX}/bin/foo ->
> > ${DESKTOPDIR}/foo.desktop.
>
> Yes, and then came ports that needed to install several icons for
> same executable, with different arguments. That was the reason for
> the change.

That had to be considered a bug for the ports, not for bsd.port.mk.  
As I said, the only bug in it was not describing limitations more 
clearly, IMHO.

> > > > and is used only internally by Gnome or whatever.
> > >
> > > Sounds like a bug to me.
> >
> > Why do you think there is a bug?  Basically, desktop files are
> > meta-data for OSes which cannot handle extended attributes within
> > a
>
> No, .desktop files are just gnomeish equivalent of windows .pif
> files.

.pif was a poor copycat of Mac's resource fork. ;-P

> If they are used for something more significant, that's poor design
> by my standards. That's why I wanted to get an opinion from gnome
> team before taking any steps on this issue. 

Poor design, maybe.  But what's your point, really?

> > file (e.g., resource fork of Mac), if I understand it correctly. 
> > I don't see anything wrong with GNOME referencing its window
> > manager by desktop file name rather than by executable name with
> > obscure options.
>
> If that .desktop file was that critical for GNOME functionality,
> then why it is not installed by vendor Makefiles and have to be
> hacked in in the port??

You mean x11-wm/compiz?  As far as I know, many Linux "distros" 
install their own customized .desktop files.  As such, often times 
"vendors" don't install it by default.

> > DESKTOP_ENTRIES are for *basic* stuff and bsd.port.mk clearly
> > says complex desktop files cannot use it:
>
> Yes but I see no need to abandon DESKTOP_ENTRIES for a simple port
> like links..

Please let the maintainers decide.

Jung-uk Kim


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