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

[Kaj Ailomaa]

On Sat, Jun 27, 2015, at 06:53 PM, Len Ovens wrote:
> Any of the Standard Freedesktop Categories can be looked at any time. The 
> X-* categories can start after finalized.
> 

I'm not sure what you mean here.

> One of the changes I would like to see is that any Audio only application 
> (like a guitar tuner) have both AudioVideo and Audio. It seems that
> making 
> a generally Video application is likely to be AudioVideo because almost 
> all Video streams include Audio. That is: not worth fighting.
> 
> Video has two Categories we are interested in:
>  	AudioVideo
>  	Player
> Anything with Player and AudioVideo (even if it includes other things) 
> will end up in multimedia players.
> 
> If it is not Video, We should see at least Audio. Anything without Audio 
> that has AudioVideo is video, any of these without Player is Video 
> Production.
> 

According to the Freedesktop standard, if you add Audio, or Video, you
must also add AudioVideo. So, either AudioVideo;Audio, or
AudioVideo;Video. Having all three I don't think is against any rule,
and is only sensible if there are no other categories that further
define the desktop file. So, at least one of these two:
 * AudioVideo;Audio
 * AudioVideo;Video

A player, like VLC might only need:
 * AudioVideo;Player

But, these won't work:
 * Audio;Player
 * Video;Player
 * Audio;Video;Player

This is one thing I will be adding to the documentation for how we do
things. There may be a few rules on obligatory stuff like this.

> Honestly, for our menu, I don't think there are enough Video Production 
> Applications that we need to split this any more. If we did, I would
> think 
> Utilities would be next.

I think it's too early to decide how the menu should look. I have
installed every package with a desktop file in the Debian sections
Sound, Video and Graphics, but since the categories are not complete in
the desktop files, it's hard to see which will end up where in the end.
We're talking a few hundred desktop files after all :).
Also, the menu in itself does not really affect our work on the
freedesktop categories. We have to choose correct categories that seem
logical for each application, and later we can see which categories we
end up using in our menu, all though some categories are pretty clear
already.

> 
> Tuner may be used in two ways, some people include it for an FM tuner and 
> others use it for an instrument tuner. The FM tuner should have Player as 
> well, In my opinion.

Player specifies something that plays audio or video files. A tuner does
not do that, right?
I do think we should add the Tuner to the multimedia playback category
in the menu though.

> 
> What do we do with Blender?
> 

I started thinking more about our extra categories, and realized
something. Blender is both Graphics and AudioVideo. In more detail, it's
3DGraphics, and our newly created X-VideoEditing.
And, with that, Blender would have something like:
    Categories:Graphics;3DGraphics;AudioVideo;Video;AudioVideoEditing;X-VideoEditing

But, since the combo of Video and AudioVideoEditing makes it possible to
filter video editing applications only, there is no need for
X-VideoEditing (and the same goed for X-AudioEditing in audio
applications).
So:
   Categories:Graphics;3DGraphics;AudioVideo;Video;AudioVideoEditing

I'm starting to think the latter is the way to go actually. Less custom
categories, but with the same result.

In the case of Ardour
   Categories:AudioVideo;Audio;AudioVideoEditing;Sequencer;Recorder

The combination of Sequencer, AudioVideoEditing and Recorder makes it
possible to classify it as a DAW.
LMMS can't record though, can it (I have to admit I don't use it much)?
It is often regarded as a DAW, in which case perhaps it is enough to use
the combo of Sequencer and AudioVideoEditing to classify something as a
DAW. In any case, there is not absolute need for X-DAW (no matter if we
use it as a menu item or not).

Coming back to Blender, I would personally like it if there was a
special desktop file to start Blender in video editing mode, in which
case there would be two desktop files for two purposes.