Request to register a "Main" desktop Category: Electronics

[Chitlesh GOORAH-2]

Hello there,

This is a request to register a "Main" desktop Category: Electronics
so that it becomes a standard defined by
http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html

Name: Electronics
Description : Electronics design and simulation software, e.g. a
circuit designer
Notes: (none)

For nearly 3 years, Fedora is also striving to provide an advanced
electronic design and simulation platform for electronic hardware
development under the name of "Fedora Electronic Lab". In short we
provide opensource solutions for people to develop from IC chips to a
final product e.g openmoko smartphone.

http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/FEL

I'm writing you this email on behalf of all upstream projects we are
working with so that we all can deliver an unified and standard set of
guidelines for other linux distributions, not only for Fedora.

Problems we have WITHOUT this electronics main category:
* The software we are providing do not fall under "Education"
freedesktop MAIN category but fall into an advanced engineering
category not yet defined by the freedesktop standard. At the same
time, we don't want to mix software for Electronic Engineering and
Mechanical Engineering, thus category "Engineering" isn't appropriate
for a long term solution.
* An unified and standard set of guidelines for all linux
distributions and developers.
* There are a lot of electronic "design flows". Each design flow
contains various set of software. If all the software for electronic
design falls into various categories, it does not give any linux
distribution the proper credentials and value of their solutions.
Opensource solutions are there but lost inside the bag.
* No Compatibility across various desktop environments: KDE, gnome,
XFCE, LXDE,...

We are hoping that if this "Electronics" main category is approved,
packagers of various distributions and developers will add
Categories=Electronics;
to their desktop files.

In order not to drown other users into complexity, one of the gEDA
developers came up with a small package called "electronics-menu"
http://geda.seul.org/dist/electronics-menu-1.0.tar.gz
which provides a "Electronics" menu as described by the RED arrow :
http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/images/electronic-menu.png

Please accept the icon provided
http://geda.seul.org/dist/electronics-menu-1.0.tar.gz.

On Fedora, we have tuned our GUI electronics software's desktop files
so that they support this "Electronics" main category. I was told that
even debian is opting for this type of menu category.

As you can see on this page:
http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/FEL/list.html
we have quite a handful set of GUI for electronic design. That said,
other electronic solutions are also mixed and confuses  a lot of users
as they (newbies) can't distinguish the software set they need for
their respective design flow (analog, digital, mixed signal,
embedded). Hence, I've added submenu support to the
http://geda.seul.org/dist/electronics-menu-1.0.tar.gz as described by
the YELLOW arrow. However, we are still under discussion about the
proper subcategory naming. Thus please leave these additional
categories for a later discussion.
http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/images/electronic-menu.png

Kind regards,
Chitlesh Goorah
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[Chitlesh GOORAH-2]

Hello there,

I'm posted this email 4 days ago, hoping it might attract some
attention upstream. Till now I haven't got any comment about this. Is
it worth for your guys (upstream) ?

Kind regards,
Chitlesh

On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 8:36 AM, Chitlesh GOORAH wrote:

> Hello there,
>
> This is a request to register a "Main" desktop Category: Electronics
> so that it becomes a standard defined by
> http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html
>
> Name: Electronics
> Description : Electronics design and simulation software, e.g. a
> circuit designer
> Notes: (none)
>
> For nearly 3 years, Fedora is also striving to provide an advanced
> electronic design and simulation platform for electronic hardware
> development under the name of "Fedora Electronic Lab". In short we
> provide opensource solutions for people to develop from IC chips to a
> final product e.g openmoko smartphone.
>
> http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/FEL
>
> I'm writing you this email on behalf of all upstream projects we are
> working with so that we all can deliver an unified and standard set of
> guidelines for other linux distributions, not only for Fedora.
>
> Problems we have WITHOUT this electronics main category:
> * The software we are providing do not fall under "Education"
> freedesktop MAIN category but fall into an advanced engineering
> category not yet defined by the freedesktop standard. At the same
> time, we don't want to mix software for Electronic Engineering and
> Mechanical Engineering, thus category "Engineering" isn't appropriate
> for a long term solution.
> * An unified and standard set of guidelines for all linux
> distributions and developers.
> * There are a lot of electronic "design flows". Each design flow
> contains various set of software. If all the software for electronic
> design falls into various categories, it does not give any linux
> distribution the proper credentials and value of their solutions.
> Opensource solutions are there but lost inside the bag.
> * No Compatibility across various desktop environments: KDE, gnome,
> XFCE, LXDE,...
>
> We are hoping that if this "Electronics" main category is approved,
> packagers of various distributions and developers will add
> Categories=Electronics;
> to their desktop files.
>
> In order not to drown other users into complexity, one of the gEDA
> developers came up with a small package called "electronics-menu"
> http://geda.seul.org/dist/electronics-menu-1.0.tar.gz
> which provides a "Electronics" menu as described by the RED arrow :
> http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/images/electronic-menu.png
>
> Please accept the icon provided
> http://geda.seul.org/dist/electronics-menu-1.0.tar.gz.
>
> On Fedora, we have tuned our GUI electronics software's desktop files
> so that they support this "Electronics" main category. I was told that
> even debian is opting for this type of menu category.
>
> As you can see on this page:
> http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/FEL/list.html
> we have quite a handful set of GUI for electronic design. That said,
> other electronic solutions are also mixed and confuses  a lot of users
> as they (newbies) can't distinguish the software set they need for
> their respective design flow (analog, digital, mixed signal,
> embedded). Hence, I've added submenu support to the
> http://geda.seul.org/dist/electronics-menu-1.0.tar.gz as described by
> the YELLOW arrow. However, we are still under discussion about the
> proper subcategory naming. Thus please leave these additional
> categories for a later discussion.
> http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/images/electronic-menu.png
>
> Kind regards,
> Chitlesh Goorah
>

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[Vincent Untz]

Le lundi 28 septembre 2009, à 08:36 +0200, Chitlesh GOORAH a écrit :

> Hello there,
>
> This is a request to register a "Main" desktop Category: Electronics
> so that it becomes a standard defined by
> http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html
>
> Name: Electronics
> Description : Electronics design and simulation software, e.g. a
> circuit designer
> Notes: (none)

I don't think it should be a main category. However, we can certainly
add an additional category for it -- looking at the screenshot you
provided, there seems to be enough app to justify this. Can you just
file a bug against the Specification product in bugs.freedesktop.org?

Or create a patch for the specification if you can :-) It lives at
http://webcvs.freedesktop.org/menus/menu-spec/

Vincent

--
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.
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[Peter TB Brett]

Vincent Untz <vuntz@...> writes:

> Le lundi 28 septembre 2009, à 08:36 +0200, Chitlesh GOORAH a écrit :
>> Hello there,
>>
>> This is a request to register a "Main" desktop Category: Electronics
>> so that it becomes a standard defined by
>> http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html
>>
>> Name: Electronics
>> Description : Electronics design and simulation software, e.g. a
>> circuit designer
>> Notes: (none)
>
> I don't think it should be a main category. However, we can certainly
> add an additional category for it -- looking at the screenshot you
> provided, there seems to be enough app to justify this. Can you just
> file a bug against the Specification product in bugs.freedesktop.org?
>

So which *main* category do you think is appropriate for these
applications?  As far as I can tell, the answer is, "None of them!"

Can you at least consider the addition of an "Engineering" main
category?  Otherwise all engineering applications are going to be
scattered between the equally-inappropriate "Graphics", "Education" and
"Development" categories, which is clearly the Wrong Thing.

I can't believe that, after all these years, XDG *still* hasn't managed
to correct this obvious deficiency in the original set of main
categories.

                                       Peter

--
Peter Brett <peter@...>
Remote Sensing Research Group
Surrey Space Centre

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