[Kde-games-devel] generic names in .desktop files

[Ian Wadham]

I have just changed and committed new GenericName texts for
KGoldrunner, KJumpingCube and Kubrick which are intended to
appear in future menus, though I have been unable to test them
as I have not yet succeeded in building a fully-functional KDE 4
desktop on my machine.

I am not too sure of the description for KGoldrunner (GenericName
HAS to be the wrong term for this).  It is rather difficult to summarise
KGoldrunner in 5 or 6 words.  Any feedback or ideas, anyone?

More feedback from me below, on Aaron's topic in general.

On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:23 am, Matt Williams wrote:
> On Tuesday 15 April 2008 18:44:51 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > what it comes down to, essentially, is that the generic names for many of
> > our games are rather unhelpful to the user. having N "Boardgame" entries
> > show up isn't overly great.
> >
> > i'd love to get this cleaned up for 4.1 a bit if we can.
>
We have about a week before the Message Freeze, guys.

> I think description names are useful. Here's the list in kdegames at
> present with "<Name>: <GenericName>" (note, <name> isn't always
> the binary name):
>
> Ones that are Fine IMO: <snip>
>
> KPatience: Patience Card Game
>
Since KDE uses US English (shudder :-)) kpat should be
called "Solitaire Card Games".

> <snip>
> Ones that might need improving:
>
> KBounce: Ball Bouncing Game
> KGoldrunner: Action & Puzzle Solving Game
> Konquest: Galactic Strategy Game
> KSpaceDuel: Space Arcade Game
> KBlackBox: Blackbox Logic Game
>
> Bad ones:
>
> KJumpingCube: Tactical Game
> Kolor Lines: Tactical Game
> SameGame: Board Game
> ksudoku: Sudoku Game
> Kubrick: <none>
> KSkat: Card Game
>
> So what do people think about these?
>
I have changed KGoldrunner, KJumpingCube and Kubrick.

> I guess the real question to be asking is whether GenericName should be the
> actual generic name (i.e. KPat shold be "Patience" and Kiriki should
> be "Yahtzee") or should it be more descriptive (i.e. "(A) patience card
> game" and "(A) Yahtzee-like Dice Game" or even "Connect the dots to create
> squares" for KSquares)?
>
I'm with Albert on this.  GenericName means what?  It is not really a
description such as you would want to see in a menu.  Nor is it exactly a 
category, like "Board Game".  Is it to "Name" like "aspirin" is to "Disprin"?

> However, I think the main reason this is a problem is because Kickoff shows
> the GenericName be default and only show the real Name on hover. For games
> (where there can be a lot of overlap within genres) this is completely the
> wrong way to go about it.
>
Yes, and this is a leap backward IMO.  KDE 3.5.7 menu shows both, all the
time.  No need to hover, as in KDE 4, if you are looking for a name.

Cheers, Ian W.