BetterMenuManagement

Revision 1 as of 2006-12-22 20:37:51

Clear message

Please check the status of this specification in Launchpad before editing it. If it is Approved, contact the Assignee or another knowledgeable person before making changes.

Summary

After a while, when many applications are installed, menus get cluttered and difficult to use. We probably could improve those so that the menus are divided into subcategories, such as (Games -> Arcade/Action/Strategy/Simulation; Internet -> WWW/Instant Messaging/Chat/Mail/P2P).

Use cases

  • Joe has installed a few software into his system, but would like them sorted by categories so the just-installed program would be easier to find.
  • Bob is a power-user, and has lots of software installed on his machine. He would like to be able to find a certain program faster, without having to scroll through menus.

Scope

To get where we want, .desktop files, in the main packages. On the packages from Universe, it might be difficult to do it, because some of those packages don't even have .desktop files.

Design

By following the standards from the .desktop file format (http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/) and the menu specifications, http://www.freedesktop.org/Standards/menu-spec , this is not hard to be done.

Implementation

The process can happen when the package is installed, or have an external application which "scans" .desktop files and processes them, creating adequate menu entries.

BoF agenda and discussion


CategorySpec