Proper menu integration of universe packages

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Sun, Nov 07, 2004 at 10:12:43PM +0100, Christoph Haas wrote:

> As I'm quite new to Ubuntu the question may sound funny. But what effort
> is done to integrate applications into the "Applications" menu? Is there a
> special team that rebuilds packages with proper
> /usr/share/applications/*.desktop files?

Most of the packages which make up the Ubuntu desktop already have proper
.desktop files, but we have added or modified some of them where necessary.

> As the packages' file name contain 'ubuntu' they are probably recompiled
> anyway.

Ubuntu does not use precompiled binaries from anywhere else, for any
package.  Everything in the archive is built from source on our
autobuilders.

> If so what happens to the desktop files? Are they customised? Do they get
> sent to the respective Debian package maintainer?

If the change is appropriate for Debian as well, it is generally sent
upstream.

> The worst thing in Debian IMHO is the 'Debian' submenu where all packages
> are cluttered. Not everybody maintainer seems to maintain proper desktop
> files (probably because the .menu entry is still in the dh-make template
> and the .desktop documentation is confusiong) to place menu entries in the
> right locations. Is already work in process to integrate (universe)
> packages with proper desktop menus? Do they need help? :)

The nature of universe is that it does not receive the same attention that
main does, as far as integrating these applications nicely with the desktop.

We do of course welcome such efforts from folks who are interested in
working on it.

-- 
 - mdz