[opensuse-factory] Policy around desktop files for command line applications

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Simon Lees

13 Feb 2019 13 Feb '19

01:04

Hi All, Since the dawn of time (well as long as I can be bothered going back) we have installed joe on most desktop systems via patterns, traditionally no one has really cared about this except for maybe the few people who use it, its 1.7Mb after all. That is until the last couple of months where we have had several questions about it, it turns out this is mostly because the latest version of joe installs 4 menu items via .desktop files. Traditionally in openSUSE unlike some other distro's we haven't had menu items for console applications currently our guidelines say "For the purposes of these guidelines, a GUI application is defined as any application which draws an X window and runs from within that window."[1] The gray area we have is how to interpret a desktop file that launches a commandline app in the terminal of your choice using the "Terminal=true" at the moment the only other apps on my system that do this without also having something like noshow set so they don't appear in menus is lftp and htop. Installing 4 joe desktop files for every isn't the best user experience ever so I'll likely remove it from the patterns if it keeps the desktop files but I don't really mind which or have an opinion on which solution would be better so I thought i'd open it up for discussion. 1. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Packaging_guidelines#Desktop_files -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

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Carlos E. R.

13 Feb 13 Feb

03:03

New subject: [opensuse-factory] Re: Policy around desktop files for command line applications

On 13/02/2019 02.04, Simon Lees wrote:

...

Hi All,

Since the dawn of time (well as long as I can be bothered going back) we have installed joe on most desktop systems via patterns, traditionally no one has really cared about this except for maybe the few people who use it, its 1.7Mb after all. That is until the last couple of months where we have had several questions about it, it turns out this is mostly because the latest version of joe installs 4 menu items via .desktop files.

Traditionally in openSUSE unlike some other distro's we haven't had menu items for console applications currently our guidelines say

"For the purposes of these guidelines, a GUI application is defined as any application which draws an X window and runs from within that window."[1]

The gray area we have is how to interpret a desktop file that launches a commandline app in the terminal of your choice using the "Terminal=true" at the moment the only other apps on my system that do this without also having something like noshow set so they don't appear in menus is lftp and htop.

Installing 4 joe desktop files for every isn't the best user experience ever so I'll likely remove it from the patterns if it keeps the desktop files but I don't really mind which or have an opinion on which solution would be better so I thought i'd open it up for discussion.

Please just remove the desktop files, but leave joe. It is the editor of choice in text/rescue mode for those of us that can not use vi. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.0 x86_64 at Telcontar)

Patrick Shanahan

03:27

* Simon Lees [02-12-19 20:06]:

...

Hi All,

Since the dawn of time (well as long as I can be bothered going back) we have installed joe on most desktop systems via patterns, traditionally no one has really cared about this except for maybe the few people who use it, its 1.7Mb after all. That is until the last couple of months where we have had several questions about it, it turns out this is mostly because the latest version of joe installs 4 menu items via .desktop files.

Traditionally in openSUSE unlike some other distro's we haven't had menu items for console applications currently our guidelines say

"For the purposes of these guidelines, a GUI application is defined as any application which draws an X window and runs from within that window."[1]

The gray area we have is how to interpret a desktop file that launches a commandline app in the terminal of your choice using the "Terminal=true" at the moment the only other apps on my system that do this without also having something like noshow set so they don't appear in menus is lftp and htop.

Installing 4 joe desktop files for every isn't the best user experience ever so I'll likely remove it from the patterns if it keeps the desktop files but I don't really mind which or have an opinion on which solution would be better so I thought i'd open it up for discussion.

1. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Packaging_guidelines#Desktop_files

I prefer the wordstar version of joe and have used it for years. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Simon Lees

03:57

On 13/02/2019 13:57, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

* Simon Lees [02-12-19 20:06]:

...
Hi All,

Installing 4 joe desktop files for every isn't the best user experience ever so I'll likely remove it from the patterns if it keeps the desktop files but I don't really mind which or have an opinion on which solution would be better so I thought i'd open it up for discussion.

1. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Packaging_guidelines#Desktop_files

I prefer the wordstar version of joe and have used it for years.

The reason it installs 4 desktop files, is because it also installs ones for the Wordstar, Nano and Emacs versions. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

Patrick Shanahan

04:27

* Simon Lees [02-12-19 23:00]:

...

On 13/02/2019 13:57, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...
* Simon Lees [02-12-19 20:06]:

...
Hi All,

Installing 4 joe desktop files for every isn't the best user experience ever so I'll likely remove it from the patterns if it keeps the desktop files but I don't really mind which or have an opinion on which solution would be better so I thought i'd open it up for discussion.

1. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Packaging_guidelines#Desktop_files

I prefer the wordstar version of joe and have used it for years.

The reason it installs 4 desktop files, is because it also installs ones for the Wordstar, Nano and Emacs versions.

yes, I see that now. but I seldom use the menu for anything. I have shortcuts defined for most used apps and <alt><f2> for the rest, and joe is a cl app. removing the ".desktop" files is ok by me as if I particularly see the need for one, I can create it by copying an existing and editing. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Maurizio Galli (MauG)

07:45

The desktop entries were added upstream since version 4.6: https://build.opensuse.org/package/view_file/editors/joe/joe.changes?expand=... Perhaps a simple modification of the spec file to remove those entries would be enough and we can keep Joe in there. On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 12:27 PM Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

* Simon Lees [02-12-19 23:00]:

...
On 13/02/2019 13:57, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...
* Simon Lees [02-12-19 20:06]:

...
Hi All,

Installing 4 joe desktop files for every isn't the best user experience ever so I'll likely remove it from the patterns if it keeps the desktop files but I don't really mind which or have an opinion on which solution would be better so I thought i'd open it up for discussion.

1. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Packaging_guidelines#Desktop_files

I prefer the wordstar version of joe and have used it for years.

The reason it installs 4 desktop files, is because it also installs ones for the Wordstar, Nano and Emacs versions.

yes, I see that now. but I seldom use the menu for anything. I have shortcuts defined for most used apps and <alt><f2> for the rest, and joe is a cl app.

removing the ".desktop" files is ok by me as if I particularly see the need for one, I can create it by copying an existing and editing.

-- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Jan Engelhardt

08:57

On Wednesday 2019-02-13 05:27, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

...
...
...
Installing 4 joe desktop files for every isn't the best user experience

The reason it installs 4 desktop files, is because it also installs ones for the Wordstar, Nano and Emacs versions.

yes, I see that now. but I seldom use the menu for anything. I have shortcuts defined for most used apps and <alt><f2> for the rest, and joe is a cl app.

removing the ".desktop" files is ok by me as if I particularly see the need for one, I can create it by copying an existing and editing.

Even for Windows, I cannot even remember a time I used the .lnk file for any editor, either. It has always just been Super-R, notepad (or other name), Enter. (Or create new file in the file manager / then edit) I guess there is only two or three reasons for .lnk/.desktop files to exist: - for a new user on an expedition mission through the start menu to see what's there - for a start menu to find an application when typing the initials (in case of xfrun that's when you use the Down arrow key) - to pull the shortcut from the menu onto the desktop, in case one is real heavy user of $editor -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Vojtěch Zeisek

08:37

Dne středa 13. února 2019 4:57:44 CET, Simon Lees napsal(a):

...

On 13/02/2019 13:57, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...
* Simon Lees [02-12-19 20:06]:

...
Installing 4 joe desktop files for every isn't the best user experience ever so I'll likely remove it from the patterns if it keeps the desktop files but I don't really mind which or have an opinion on which solution would be better so I thought i'd open it up for discussion.

I prefer the wordstar version of joe and have used it for years.

The reason it installs 4 desktop files, is because it also installs ones for the Wordstar, Nano and Emacs versions.

I personally like the desktop files for command-line applications, I find it much more user-friendly and accessible, so I'd rather remove joe from patterns, also as I never used it. ;) -- Vojtěch Zeisek Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/ https://trapa.cz/

Carlos E. R.

10:41

On 13/02/2019 09.37, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

...

Dne středa 13. února 2019 4:57:44 CET, Simon Lees napsal(a):

...
On 13/02/2019 13:57, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...
* Simon Lees <...@suse.de> [02-12-19 20:06]:

...
Installing 4 joe desktop files for every isn't the best user experience ever so I'll likely remove it from the patterns if it keeps the desktop files but I don't really mind which or have an opinion on which solution would be better so I thought i'd open it up for discussion.

I prefer the wordstar version of joe and have used it for years.

The reason it installs 4 desktop files, is because it also installs ones for the Wordstar, Nano and Emacs versions.

I personally like the desktop files for command-line applications, I find it much more user-friendly and accessible, so I'd rather remove joe from patterns, also as I never used it. ;)

Boot the installation DVD, and ask for the rescue system. What editor do you see there? joe Joe is there because several of us asked for it long ago, as we can not use vi, coming from a Windows past. When the system has a problem and will not boot correctly, maybe not into graphics mode, we need a text mode editor. Which will be it, vi or emacs? Please, no. (and if you like emacs, there is jmacs) -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.0 x86_64 at Telcontar)

Vojtěch Zeisek

10:48

Dne středa 13. února 2019 11:41:40 CET, Carlos E. R. napsal(a):

...

On 13/02/2019 09.37, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

...
Dne středa 13. února 2019 4:57:44 CET, Simon Lees napsal(a):

...
On 13/02/2019 13:57, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...
* Simon Lees <...@suse.de> [02-12-19 20:06]:

...
Installing 4 joe desktop files for every isn't the best user experience ever so I'll likely remove it from the patterns if it keeps the desktop files but I don't really mind which or have an opinion on which solution would be better so I thought i'd open it up for discussion.

I prefer the wordstar version of joe and have used it for years.

The reason it installs 4 desktop files, is because it also installs ones for the Wordstar, Nano and Emacs versions.

I personally like the desktop files for command-line applications, I find it much more user-friendly and accessible, so I'd rather remove joe from patterns, also as I never used it. ;)

Boot the installation DVD, and ask for the rescue system. What editor do you see there? joe

Why not nano? -- Vojtěch Zeisek Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/ https://trapa.cz/

Jan Engelhardt

11:18

On Wednesday 2019-02-13 11:48, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

...

...
Boot the installation DVD, and ask for the rescue system. What editor do you see there? joe

Why not nano?

Why not pico? If it comes down to bikeshedding, the discussion will go nowhere. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Andreas Schwab

11:26

New subject: [opensuse-factory] Re: Policy around desktop files for command line applications

On Feb 13 2019, Jan Engelhardt wrote:

...

On Wednesday 2019-02-13 11:48, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

...
...
Boot the installation DVD, and ask for the rescue system. What editor do you see there? joe

Why not nano?

Why not pico?

https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html Andreas. -- Andreas Schwab, SUSE Labs, schwab@suse.de GPG Key fingerprint = 0196 BAD8 1CE9 1970 F4BE 1748 E4D4 88E3 0EEA B9D7 "And now for something completely different." -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Simon Lees

13:02

On 13/02/2019 21:48, Jan Engelhardt wrote:

...

On Wednesday 2019-02-13 11:48, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

...
...
Boot the installation DVD, and ask for the rescue system. What editor do you see there? joe

Why not nano?

Why not pico?

If it comes down to bikeshedding, the discussion will go nowhere.

Well nano is a pretty reasonable suggestion, its still small, has reasonable dependencies, its not hard to use for a command line text editor and one would probably say its more common then joe so if we were making that decision again for the rescue system going for nano instead might make sense. In fact it was such a reasonable request that while writing this email I created submit requests to add nano to the rescue system on tumbleweed and leap 15.1 However, we are not talking about the rescue system here and at the point were installing joe, we are also installing nano and vim and if your really feeling special you can even run vi as provided by busybox-static. Personally i'm still more likely to go with the remove the desktop files then remove joe from the pattern. -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

Carlos E. R.

14:03

On 13/02/2019 14.02, Simon Lees wrote:

...

On 13/02/2019 21:48, Jan Engelhardt wrote:

...
On Wednesday 2019-02-13 11:48, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

...
...
Boot the installation DVD, and ask for the rescue system. What editor do you see there? joe

Why not nano?

Why not pico?

If it comes down to bikeshedding, the discussion will go nowhere.

Well nano is a pretty reasonable suggestion, its still small, has reasonable dependencies, its not hard to use for a command line text editor and one would probably say its more common then joe so if we were making that decision again for the rescue system going for nano instead might make sense. In fact it was such a reasonable request that while writing this email I created submit requests to add nano to the rescue system on tumbleweed and leap 15.1

But joe also emulates pico, if you just call "jpico somefile". Thus having joe installed can make happy more users than just pico. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.0 x86_64 at Telcontar)

Axel Braun

15:34

Am Mittwoch, 13. Februar 2019, 12:18:27 CET schrieb Jan Engelhardt:

...

On Wednesday 2019-02-13 11:48, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

...
...
Boot the installation DVD, and ask for the rescue system. What editor do you see there? joe

Why not nano?

Why not pico?

If it comes down to bikeshedding, the discussion will go nowhere.

Yep. At least for me, I can easily survive w/o desktop icons for those CLI tools My 2c Axel -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Maurizio Galli (MauG)

16:39

FYI I have made the following SR to the devel project, removing the desktop files from the package. You can review/comment here:https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/674653# On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 11:34 PM Axel Braun wrote:

...

Am Mittwoch, 13. Februar 2019, 12:18:27 CET schrieb Jan Engelhardt:

...
On Wednesday 2019-02-13 11:48, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

...
...
Boot the installation DVD, and ask for the rescue system. What editor do you see there? joe

Why not nano?

Why not pico?

If it comes down to bikeshedding, the discussion will go nowhere.

Yep. At least for me, I can easily survive w/o desktop icons for those CLI tools

My 2c Axel

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Simon Lees

14 Feb 14 Feb

00:16

On 14/02/2019 03:09, Maurizio Galli (MauG) wrote:

...

FYI I have made the following SR to the devel project, removing the desktop files from the package. You can review/comment here:https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/674653#

Thanks -- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B

Carlos E. R.

13 Feb 13 Feb

13:52

On 13/02/2019 11.48, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

...

Dne středa 13. února 2019 11:41:40 CET, Carlos E. R. napsal(a):

...
On 13/02/2019 09.37, Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

...
Dne středa 13. února 2019 4:57:44 CET, Simon Lees napsal(a):

...
On 13/02/2019 13:57, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...
* Simon Lees <...@suse.de> [02-12-19 20:06]:

...
Installing 4 joe desktop files for every isn't the best user experience ever so I'll likely remove it from the patterns if it keeps the desktop files but I don't really mind which or have an opinion on which solution would be better so I thought i'd open it up for discussion.

I prefer the wordstar version of joe and have used it for years.

The reason it installs 4 desktop files, is because it also installs ones for the Wordstar, Nano and Emacs versions.

I personally like the desktop files for command-line applications, I find it much more user-friendly and accessible, so I'd rather remove joe from patterns, also as I never used it. ;)

Boot the installation DVD, and ask for the rescue system. What editor do you see there? joe

Why not nano?

That's the Alpine editor in standalone mode, I believe. I can work with that in a need, but joe, in its Word Star (or Borland´s "Turbo" languages) emulation mode is familiar to many MsDOS/Windows people, and it can emulate pico, emacs, and Word Star - thus can be familiar to more people. There is also mcedit, which is very simple to use although not powerful, and comes with 'mc' package - a very useful thing to have when forced to use text mode. I would love to see this package in the rescue images and emergency modes (initrd). -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.0 x86_64 at Telcontar)

James Knott

13:41

On 02/12/2019 10:57 PM, Simon Lees wrote:

...

The reason it installs 4 desktop files, is because it also installs ones for the Wordstar, Nano and Emacs versions.

Does anyone still use Wordstar? I used to use Wordstar 2000 at work, but that was over 24 years ago. I also used to use PC-Write. Does Joe support it too? ;-) BTW, I didn't realize Emacs was also an editor. :-D -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R.

14:00

On 13/02/2019 14.41, James Knott wrote:

...

On 02/12/2019 10:57 PM, Simon Lees wrote:

...
The reason it installs 4 desktop files, is because it also installs ones for the Wordstar, Nano and Emacs versions.

Does anyone still use Wordstar?

Not that I know, but several programs use its keyboard layout - for instance, Borland IDEs. I'd have to check Lazarus. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.0 x86_64 at Telcontar)

James Knott

14:12

On 02/13/2019 09:00 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

Not that I know, but several programs use its keyboard layout - for instance, Borland IDEs. I'd have to check Lazarus.

Borland Sidekick? Anyone still using that? I suspect anything that uses Wordstar keystrokes is ancient. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Patrick Shanahan

14:43

* Carlos E. R. [02-13-19 09:02]:

...

On 13/02/2019 14.41, James Knott wrote:

...
On 02/12/2019 10:57 PM, Simon Lees wrote:

...
The reason it installs 4 desktop files, is because it also installs ones for the Wordstar, Nano and Emacs versions.

Does anyone still use Wordstar?

Not that I know, but several programs use its keyboard layout - for instance, Borland IDEs. I'd have to check Lazarus.

and users with longer hair probably learned the wordstar key strokes long ago and prefer to continue using them as many *standards* still employe similar. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

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Andreas Schwab
Axel Braun
Carlos E. R.
James Knott
Jan Engelhardt
Maurizio Galli (MauG)
Patrick Shanahan
Simon Lees
Vojtěch Zeisek

[opensuse-factory] Policy around desktop files for command line applications

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