Need for new multimedia categories

[Orcan Ogetbil-2]

Hello list,

We, at Fedora, have decided to do a categorization of our multimedia
menu upon increased demand, especially from Audio Creation folks, some
of who reported to have 100+ applications in their Multimedia menu.
Until now, we have been using the AudioVideo category to place an
application in the Multimedia top menu. This makes applications hard
to find and in turn, makes the desktop menu useless for many users.

So, we checked what categories are available in freedesktop
specification that we can use for a classification. Currently,
Midi
Mixer
Sequencer
Tuner
TV
AudioVideoEditing
Player
Recorder
DiscBurning
Music
categories are registered, which are insufficient to meet the demand.

Particularly, digital effect applications (ladspa, lv2, ...),
synthesizers, musical notation applications, jack applications, audio
tools (e.g. a metronome) are hard to fit in any of the above
categories. Moreover, the above categories do not distinguish between
capture/import applications and output generation applications.

I am sure that when the above categories were registered, the
multimedia production applications weren't considered, or maybe there
weren't enough of these applications around to consider. For instance,
"Recorder" is really a bad category name, as there are totally
different application types which do some sort of recording in their
own field.

After careful consideration we decided to use special "X-..."
categories to classify the multimedia applications according to the
demand. This suggests using these additional categories:

X-AudioVideo-Import
X-AudioVideo-Capture
X-Digital_Processing
X-Synthesis
X-Jack
X-Multitrack
X-Trackers
X-Notation
X-Output-Generation
X-Streamer
X-Subtitle-Editor
X-Audio_Tools

I would like to have these considered to be added to freedesktop
registered categories as we don't want to deviate too much from
freedesktop standards.

Best,
Orcan Ogetbil

PS: The proposal for the classification accepted by the Fedora
Steereng Committee can be found here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/FedoraStudio
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[Stanislav Brabec]

Orcan Ogetbil wrote:

> After careful consideration we decided to use special "X-..."
> categories to classify the multimedia applications according to the
> demand. This suggests using these additional categories:

Please add them to:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&product=Specifications&component=desktop-entry&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailcc2=1&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=

It would be nice to update desktop spec, as there is may useful
categories missing.

Feel free to comment other proposals there (I collected them from the
list several months ago).

Vincent, is it possible to help you somehow with the new version of the
specification?

--
Best Regards / S pozdravem,

Stanislav Brabec
software developer
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[Vincent Untz]

Le jeudi 27 août 2009, à 15:15 +0200, Stanislav Brabec a écrit :

> Orcan Ogetbil wrote:
>
> > After careful consideration we decided to use special "X-..."
> > categories to classify the multimedia applications according to the
> > demand. This suggests using these additional categories:
>
> Please add them to:
> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&product=Specifications&component=desktop-entry&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailcc2=1&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=
>
> It would be nice to update desktop spec, as there is may useful
> categories missing.
>
> Feel free to comment other proposals there (I collected them from the
> list several months ago).
>
> Vincent, is it possible to help you somehow with the new version of the
> specification?

Sure, having people comment on how useful the proposed categories are
would help :-)

Here are the relevant bugs:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20186
"clash of Science and Education => new main Category"
Moving Science as a toplevel category is fine with me; no need for an
additional category, though (economy or geography are sciences)

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20187
"mapping, navigation, GPS..."
Adding something like "Maps" (not fan of the name, though) makes sense.
Not quite sure we need GIS.

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20189
"each Additional Category need Main Category"
Sounds like something we can just fix.

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20191
"request for GPE and XFCE"
No strong opinion there; as long as the projects (GPE, XFCE, ROX, etc.)
still want something, let's add it.

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20192
"request for Spirituality and Philosophy"
Ah, this one is famous. At the moment, I would just go with
Spirituality, and add Philosophy later on if it's really needed.

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20197
"add PIM support and RSS support"
Fine with me.

Vincent

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[Vincent Untz]

Hi,

Le mardi 04 août 2009, à 04:00 -0400, Orcan Ogetbil a écrit :
> After careful consideration we decided to use special "X-..."
> categories to classify the multimedia applications according to the
> demand. This suggests using these additional categories:

FWIW, it'd help to have a short description for each of the proposed
category :-)

> X-AudioVideo-Import
> X-AudioVideo-Capture

Do we really need to differentiate those two?

> X-Digital_Processing
> X-Synthesis

Same question, I guess.

> X-Jack

Is it really needed? Sounds a bit weird to add this to me.

> X-Multitrack
> X-Trackers

Need to differentiate?

> X-Notation

Notation is probably too generic, but makes sense. Is it only for music
stuff? If yes, we could use MusicNotation.

> X-Output-Generation
> X-Streamer

Hrm. Not clear what app you would put there. So maybe those need better
names ;-) Or at least the description.

> X-Subtitle-Editor

Are there enough apps for this category to be worth existing?

> X-Audio_Tools

This one sounds like something you could achieve with Utility;Audio; ?

Thanks,

Vincent

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[Orcan Ogetbil-2]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 7:48 PM, Vincent Untz wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Le mardi 04 août 2009, à 04:00 -0400, Orcan Ogetbil a écrit :
>> After careful consideration we decided to use special "X-..."
>> categories to classify the multimedia applications according to the
>> demand. This suggests using these additional categories:
>
> FWIW, it'd help to have a short description for each of the proposed
> category :-)
>
>> X-AudioVideo-Import
>> X-AudioVideo-Capture
>
> Do we really need to differentiate those two?
>

Nope. One or the other would be fine.

>> X-Digital_Processing
>> X-Synthesis
>
> Same question, I guess.
>

Here, Digital Processing can be used for effects that are applied to
AUDIO input. For instance you plug in your guitar, and put distortion,
reverb, wah effects on top.
Synthesis is geared more towards MIDI instruments. I think a
distinction is needed between AUDIO and MIDI in this sense. But of
course, if we don't want too many predefined categories, one can
define the submenus so that they correspond to "Audio;Synthesis;" and
"Midi;Synthesis;" categories in the desktop file.

>> X-Jack
>
> Is it really needed? Sounds a bit weird to add this to me.
>

If I had a choice of adding only one Audio category to freedesktop
standards, Jack would be my choice. It is the standard library for
audio production. Jack is as much standard in Linux world as MIDI is.
I believe that listing Jack applications in one submenu is very, very
useful. The most important and powerful feature of Jack is, Audio and
Midi applications that use Jack can easily connect to each other. Jack
users typically use multiple Jack applications at once.

>> X-Multitrack
>> X-Trackers
>
> Need to differentiate?
>

Nope.

>> X-Notation
>
> Notation is probably too generic, but makes sense. Is it only for music
> stuff? If yes, we could use MusicNotation.
>

Yes. It was meant to be only for music stuff. But it can be used in
science and in other areas too. So one can use "Audio;Notation;",
"Science;Notation;" etc.

>> X-Output-Generation
>> X-Streamer
>> Hrm. Not clear what app you would put there. So maybe those need better
> names ;-) Or at least the description.
>

Example applications would be:  AV Multiplexing, Audio Streamer,
Subtitle Editor, Format Changer, Video Streamer

>> X-Subtitle-Editor
>
> Are there enough apps for this category to be worth existing?
>

There are not "many". I guess we can live without this for a while.
But things might change in the future.

>> X-Audio_Tools
>
> This one sounds like something you could achieve with Utility;Audio; ?
>

Yes, right.

> Thanks,
>
> Vincent
>

I will summarize everything and file them as a bug to the bugzilla as
Stanislav suggested. Thanks for the feedback!

Orcan
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[Stanislav Brabec]

Vincent Untz wrote:

> Sure, having people comment on how useful the proposed categories are
> would help :-)
>
> Here are the relevant bugs:

I just added some new comments.

> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20187
> "mapping, navigation, GPS..."
> Adding something like "Maps" (not fan of the name, though) makes sense.
> Not quite sure we need GIS.

Well, we have Geography. We can explicitly say:

"Navigation applications, map editors and GIS are Science;Geography;
(and not Graphics;something)."

Nowadays authors of navigation software have absolutely no idea where to
place it (they use Science;Education;Geography;Graphics;2DGrahics;Maps;).

But maybe just plain navigation should not be in Science;Geography;.

I don't have a strong opinion, but the spec should have.

> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20191
> "request for GPE and XFCE"
> No strong opinion there; as long as the projects (GPE, XFCE, ROX, etc.)
> still want something, let's add it.

Another idea: Let's define the List of Registered Desktops and Toolkits
and then refer to it.

> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20192
> "request for Spirituality and Philosophy"
> Ah, this one is famous. At the moment, I would just go with
> Spirituality, and add Philosophy later on if it's really needed.

It sounds like a good plan.

> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20197
> "add PIM support and RSS support"
> Fine with me.

PIM may be more generic "PDA" as well.

Regarding the RSS: I read a mail from January, maybe something like
generic OnlineService may be useful.

Regarding the PIM: Maybe PDA/Mobile may be useful instead of PIM. That
may cover applications like navigation software intended for PDA.

Well, thinking deeper about it, GUI class Categories (or a new desktop
key, e. g. GUI) may be useful as well: (TouchScreen|FingerTouch|
MultiTouch|Accessible|VoiceControl|Keyboard|Mouse|Braille|Text|
Terminal)(Supported|Recommended|Required). What do you think about it?

--
Best Regards / S pozdravem,

Stanislav Brabec
software developer
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