[haiku-bugs] Re: [Haiku] #10557: Allow the user to manage links in the DeskBar menu.
- From: "bonefish" <trac@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 00:07:29 -0000
#10557: Allow the user to manage links in the DeskBar menu.
------------------------------------+----------------------------
Reporter: bbjimmy | Owner: axeld
Type: enhancement | Status: reopened
Priority: normal | Milestone: R1
Component: Applications/Deskbar | Version: R1/Development
Resolution: | Keywords:
Blocked By: | Blocking:
Has a Patch: 0 | Platform: All
------------------------------------+----------------------------
Comment (by bonefish):
@kvdman: Yeah we know, package management totally sucks. Feel free to
whine as much as you like, but please don't abuse the bug tracker for that
purpose.
As a side note: The Deskbar menu change really has not much to do with PM
as such. Since all packages had to be rebuilt/reorganized anyway, it was
just an opportune time to add the automatic Desbar menu management as it
requires some cooperation on the side of the packages.
@bbjimmy: The Deskbar menu future was [//www.freelists.org/post
/haiku-development/RFC-Packages-and-the-Deskbar-menu discussed on the
development list] at some length last year. Users have rather different
opinions regarding how and by whom the menu should be organized and there
was no consensus on a perfect solution to accommodate everyone.
Basically there are two factions: those people who want the Deskbar menu
to organize itself and those who want to organize it manually. The former
seem to be the majority (at least very few admitted that they manually
organize their menu on other systems (Linux)), so this is the default
we're aiming at. Among those, there are some who want application
categories while others want a flat list.
The current solution -- which is in fact only partially implemented yet --
is meant to accommodate both factions. Eventually the applications shall
be assigned a category and the Deskbar settings shall allow choosing
between:
* An auto-managed menu with categories.
* An auto-managed menu with a flat applications list.
* A manually managed menu.
Once the applications are categorized, this is very easy to implement by
switching between two different virtual directories (one with categories
and one that flattens them), respectively a simple symlink. Tinkerers can
use their own virtual directories to do other interesting things.
There are some tradeoffs: E.g. there is no way in between automatically
and manually maintained. It was suggested that installing packages could
add the symlinks, with the user being able to modify or remove them
afterward. However, this cannot easily be done and would have some issues
of its own (cf. the discussion).
Anyway, I suppose the three way setting should address your concern in
comment:3. After switching to "manual", it would be as easy (or
complicated) to manage the menu as in BeOS. Regarding your comment:2,
given that
1. a user who wants to organize their menu themselves may not even want
the predefined categories/directories,
2. this is a relatively harmless one time effort for a user (open
/system/apps, ... and symlink what you like to where you like it), and
3. it is not even clear what the "default" applications etc. are (is Pe?,
and why would I want the Demos?)
I don't think it is worth or even useful to try and pre-populate the menu
for the manual mode. But TBH personally I don't mind that much either way,
since once the categories are there, I'll be happy with the automatic
mode.
--
Ticket URL: <https://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/10557#comment:5>
Haiku <https://dev.haiku-os.org>
Haiku - the operating system.
Other related posts:
