[Pkg-electronics-devel] Bug#567773: The desktop file for kicad and its KDE menu location

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[Peter Clifton]
> I don't use Debian Edu, so I could well be mistaken.. but I
> downloaded the meta-package, and noted that it shipped a number of
> ".menu" files:
> 
> art.menu              economy.menu      kde-essential.menu  music.menu
> astronomy.menu        electricity.menu  kids.menu           physics.menu
> biology.menu          geography.menu    languages.menu      robotics.menu
> chemistry.menu        geology.menu      literature.menu     sports.menu
> computerscience.menu  graphics.menu     math.menu
> construction.menu     history.menu      miscellaneous.menu
> 
> These might be sub-menus of course...

Right.  Yes, that is edu specific menues enabled for group members of
the teacher and studends group.  The issue discussed here show up when
this special menu setup isn't enabled, so it is not related to those
menu files in any way.

Anyway, what that is said, I suspect you are right that kicad should
not have the development section in its desktop file.  Did not
understand why it was there, and left it in place.  I suggest the
maintainer remove it on the next upload if they agree too.  But it
need some category that give it a location outside Lost+found also
when extra-xdg-menus isn't installed.  Of the official main
categories, Development and Education seem like the best options.

I fail to see why science and education are bad categories for kicad.
For KDE, it make sure kicad show up in the Education->Science submenu,
where I believe it fit well. :) No idea what effect in Gnome is. :)

>> I base this on the output from 'aptitude why extra-xdg-menus', which
>> said it was because kicad depend on it.
> 
> Yes, "Depends" is too strong and really needs fixing.

Good to know we agree there, at least. :)

I guess our disagreement is on what the default menu should look like
when installing kicad.  I believe kicad should have official xdg menu
categories and show up by default in one of the normal toplevel KDE
menu entries and show up in the electronics toplevel entry for those
that install extra-xdg-menus on their own, while you seem to believe
it should not show up in any of the normal toplevel KDE menu entries,
but only in the electronics menu entry created by extra-xdg-menus.

> No, Kicad is good.. don't drop it! In order to get the install to work
> "nicely" on a stock machine, the extra-xdg-menus needs to be at
> "Recommends" level, otherwise it doesn't get installed, and the user
> gets a bad experience.

I fail to see how a user will have a bad experience when kicad show up
in Education->Science and not Electronics without the extra-xdg-menus
package installed.

> Perhaps, but all the other electronics upstreams and developers I've
> talked to agree that "Science" is wrong, and "Education" is wrong.

Assuming that the desktop file should have categories registered on
<URL: http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-spec-latest.html#category-registry >,
which categories do you believe are most fitting for kicad and other
electronics tools?

I get the feeling that you have a rather limited view on what should
show up in the Education submenu, compared to me. :)

> The package won't show up in "Lost+Found" if Debian Edu ships a
> .menu file which pulls Electronics apps into a different
> category.

But it will show up in Lost+Found in KDE for every user that choose to
remove or disable extra-xdg-menus to reduce the number of toplevel
menu entries in the KDE menu.  I consider this a bug in the package.
No package should show up in Lost+found when its depends are
installed, and no package should force the introduction of more
toplevel menu entries in KDE. :)

> I'll happily take a look (next weds) to see how best to do this.

Talk to itais on IRC about the menues in education-menus.

Happy hacking,
-- 
Petter Reinholdtsen