[ubuntu-studio-devel] Our Set of Freedesktop Categories

[Len Ovens]

OK I have just pushed a new version of the ubuntustudio-menu package. Al 
it needs is to be uploaded and we can all see it.

I have first of all added standard Categories to our own desktop files in 
the Ubuntustudio Information menu. They are now System;Documentation;

I realized that the publishing menu (after we remove what should not be 
there) only has one item and as we were putting into Graphics anyway, I 
just put Scribus into Graphics (well it goes there on it's own).

Media playback was easy to define with no filename assignments as:
AudioVideo And Player. Of course our AUdio Production menu(s) have "Not" 
Player in them. The only Application that misses in this case is xjadeo 
which is a player. I suppose we could see if X-Jack could be added, but I 
think Ardour starts it on it's own when opening a video anyway.

Video production is mostly AudioVideo/Not_Player. There are a few things 
that should and do not have Audio in them (guitar tuners and a few others)
         <Filename>gtkguitune.desktop</Filename>
         <Filename>jackeq.desktop</Filename>
         <Filename>jack-rack.desktop</Filename>
         <Filename>ladi-system-tray.desktop</Filename>
         <Filename>lingot.desktop</Filename>
And two that we want here that don't get there:
          <Filename>blender.desktop</Filename>
 		Does not have Audio video. It does have Graphics etc. If
 		There was a way to open this in NLE mode, I would suggest
 		a second Desktop file for this.
          <Filename>xjadeo.desktop</Filename>
 		Does have Player. I am not sure if this should be included
 		here or not. Maybe just let it be in player only.

Graphics: I have moved the photography menu inside here as a sub.
 	Entangle is the only app That does not have Photography besides
 	ristretto which is a "Viewer" and really could be used to view
 	more than just Photographs. Comments on where Ristretto should go?

 	The main graphics menu is just
 	Graphics/Publishing/not_photography/not_scanning
 	For some reason I have left Font Manager in there as a file, but
 	It shouldn't need it. evince has been set to not as well (in
 	Office) Should it be visible here too?

 	Anyway, Graphics as it is could be fixed just with the addition of
 	the Photography category to entangle.

 	I did add a utility submenu to graphics which right now just has
 	the scanner app in it. Need comments on what else and how they
 	should be catagorized.

That has been the easy stuff :)

Audio is a mess :)  There are just too many items to lump them all 
together. The good news first:
 	By using _not_Player, we have gotten rid of all those.
 	Mixer sort of works... just need to add it to a few more
 	Applications:
           <Filename>echomixer.desktop</Filename>
           <Filename>alsamixergui.desktop</Filename>
           <Filename>gnome-alsamixer.desktop</Filename>
           <Filename>hdajackretask.desktop</Filename>
           <Filename>hdspconf.desktop</Filename>
           <Filename>hdspmixer.desktop</Filename>
           <Filename>jack-mixer.desktop</Filename>
           <Filename>jack_mixer.desktop</Filename>
           <Filename>jackeq.desktop</Filename>
           <Filename>mudita24.desktop</Filename>
           <Filename>rmedigicontrol.desktop</Filename>
           <Filename>qamix.desktop</Filename>
You may note that we don't even ship all of these. SO I don't know that 
all of them need to be here. The ones that come with Alsa are the worst 
offenders. Jackeq despite it's name really is a mixer.. only Category is 
AudioVideo (Yuck).

Effects, Instruments, Audio utilities all need our extra categories. They 
are by the application right now. These categories would help clean up 
Midi utilities too. The full use of audioVideoEditing and sequencer etc 
would help as well. See /etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged/studio.menu for 
the very long list of Applications needing attention.

While we could make our own desktop files for all these to over ride the 
default, it is _much_ easier to maintain one file than dozens.


--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net