[kde-linux] XDG vs. KDE-4 Menu

[Duncan]

James Tyrer posted on Sat, 29 May 2010 07:57:52 -0700 as excerpted:

> I am still using the KDE-4.4 SVN BRANCH although I am a few days behind
> due to GCC vs. GLibc vs. Linux header problems.

Since you're running a live-svn version, is this a new bug, or has it been 
there since the 4.4.0 tag or before?  Not necessarily expecting you to 
recompile everything back to the old tags, but do you know, or have you 
just noticed this bug and don't know how it behaved earlier?

> I have KDE-4.4.x installed in: "/opt/KDE-4", if you have it installed
> in: "/usr", you might not be able to reproduce this.

FWIW, mine is in /usr, so...

> I find a strange thing which I think might be a bug.
> 
> I have my XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable set to include:
> 
> 	/usr/share
> 	/opt/KDE-4/share
> 	/usr/local/Adobe/Reader9/Resource  <- or where ever you have it.

That last looks like non-freedomware, so of course I'm not going to have 
it anywhere...

$ export | grep XDG | grep -v HOME
declare -x XDG_CONFIG_DIRS="/etc/xdg"
declare -x XDG_DATA_DIRS="/usr/local/share:/usr/share"
$

> I find that 'desktop' files in these directories do not appear in the
> menu (KickOff).

By "in these directories", do you mean in the applications subdir of these 
directories, or in these directories themselves?  Of course the 
desktop.org spec says applications subdir.  You get that in the user 
version, below, but don't specifically say it here, so I thought I'd ask.

> However, if I copy the 'desktop' files to:
> 
> 	.local/share/applications
> 
> they immediately appear in the menu and if the 'desktop' files have:
> "Categories", they are in the correct place(s) (otherwise they are in
> Lost & Found till "Categories" are added).

> I note that: "/usr/share" is first in XDG_DATA_DIRS
> 
> I think that KickOff should scan all of the XDG_DATA_DIRS to find the
> menu entries.  Can someone please reproduce this?  Do you think that
> this is a bug?

Does your $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/menus kde-4.4-applications.menu contain the 
<DefaultAppsDirs> element as specified in the spec?  I'm not sure where it 
comes from (a quick equery suggests kdelibs, a quick check of my 4.4.3 
binpkg confirms it, so I'm sure now =:^), but mine contains 
<DefaultAppsDirs/> (note the terminating /, the significance in xml of 
which I don't know), and does indeed seem to include them, tho the caveat 
above about installation location is noted.

Have you kmenuedited or otherwise edited your user's menu?  Does the same 
thing happen with a "fresh" user, without any previous user specific kde 
or xdg config?

I'm not going to try installing a bunch of stuff to other than /usr to 
test this, but I /could/ try pointing XDG_DATA_DIRS at some non-standard 
location (like somewhere in /opt) and temporarily moving my /usr/share/
applications dir there, to see if kde is appropriately following the 
XDG_DATA_DIRS setting or using some hard-coded default instead, if you 
think it'd help.  Tho it'd likely be sometime next week b4 I got to test 
it, as I'm quite busy the rest of the weekend and early next week.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman