Re: GDesktopAppInfo

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>]

On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 11:57 +0200, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 11:27 +0200, Rodrigo Moya wrote:
> > On Wed, 2007-03-28 at 15:51 +0200, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2007-03-27 at 15:46 -0400, Dan Winship wrote:
> > > > Alexander Larsson wrote:
> > > > > Do many apps really require creating launchers
> > > > > from arbitrary desktop files? What is the typical usecase of that?
> > > > 
> > > > Well, the panel in multiple places (main menu, panel launchers, run
> > > > dialog). The various panel add-ons/replacements (the Novell main menu
> > > > and app launcher, Gimmie, deskbar, alacarte, etc). Nautilus, for
> > > > creating launchers for dropped URLs/apps, and launching them later.
> > > > Gnome-session for autostart. Beagle, for launching apps in search
> > > > results. And then there's xfce-panel, Thunar, etc, etc.
> > > > 
> > > > In the realm of the not-yet-deployed, my EggSMClient code uses the app's
> > > > desktop file's Exec key to set the XSMP RestartCommand. That also led to
> > > > a discussion of having a gtk_set_desktop_file() or
> > > > gtk_application_set_desktop_file() method to call at startup, which
> > > > would feed EggSMClient the data it needed, plus it could call
> > > > g_set_application_name() and gtk_window_set_default_icon_name(), and
> > > > possibly do other setup based on loadable modules, like initializing the
> > > > bug-buddy signal handlers if the .desktop file includes
> > > > X-GNOME-Bugzilla- keys, etc.
> > > 
> > > Yeah, there is a clear need for this when implementing the Gnome
> > > desktop. But its sort of unix specific, so maybe it doesn't have to be
> > > in the very low levels of the stack. OTOH, its not really a large piece
> > > of code, especially given GKeyFile.
> > > 
> > non-GUI apps might need it also, like the new documentation indexer
> > (Spoon -> http://live.gnome.org/Yelp/Spoon). In fact, it would be great
> > if this GDesktopAppInfo implemented a .desktop cache, which is much
> > needed for gnome-main-menu and, probably, for spoon.
> 
> What is Spoon?
> 
a replacement for scrollkeeper

> The risk of adding a specialized thing like a desktop cache to a general
> library like glib is that it will by accident cause cache bloat in apps
> that don't require the cache, while at the same time not being
> aggressive enough on cacheing, and have the special apis needed for the
> case of the panel.
> 
yeah, you're right on this, we don't want to have the cache by default
for all apps.
-- 
Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>