[Gambas-user] Packager appears broken in Gambas 2.0.0 under Ubuntu Hardy

[Benoit Minisini]

On samedi 10 mai 2008, Bob Warren wrote:
> Interesting input. Points taken. Thanks guys.
>
> The only thing that frightens me about geeks is the fact that they often
> prefer innovation to the proper presentation of what they have already
> produced. So here we have a case of a broken program (Gambas 2.0.0)
> being offered through a standard channel for software that is supposedly
> stable. People try it out, get disappointed, and forget all about Gambas.

Be sure that if the bug was known before releasing Gambas 2.0, the release 
would have been delayed.

>
> And then follows the suggestion that if said potential user has real
> programming ambitions, and is worth his salt, then he sorts it out,
> because it is not really that difficult. The "out-of-the-box" experience
> shouldn't matter.
>
> I am no marketing expert, since all my professional/computer experience
> since the early 1960s has involved training and education. However, I
> definitely think there is something wrong here somewhere. I just think
> that Gambas is good enough to succeed, that's all, and it would be a
> pity to see it marginalize a great number of potential non-geeky users
> (or people like me who get impatient with what I regard as typically
> geeky presentation).

There is no marketing at all in Gambas releases. Do not think as a consumer.

>
> Whatever, the community has promptly solved my problem, which reflects
> its quality, and I am happy.
>
> Best,
>
> Bob
>
> P.S. On the theme of presentation, perhaps I should have mentioned one
> other aspect of the packaging wizard that bothers me a bit, and perhaps
> needs sorting out as far as possible. I am presented with two
> tree-views: "Package group" and "Menu entry". No doubt I can elucidate
> myself about what the meaning of these two views is, or was originally.
> What I know is that I have to decide where to put my program on the HD,
> and where the launcher should be placed within the Ubuntu menus.
> Whatever I choose among these 2 trees - that seem to bear little
> relationship with the distro I am using, the launcher always seems to
> end up in the "Other" category. Rather than presenting the user with 2
> sets of generic categories that are perhaps inappropriate, would it be
> very difficult (or even advisable) to make them correspond more closely
> to the distro being used to produce the package? Or could these 2
> destinations even be cited rather than chosen? [I am, of course, aware
> that this little request touches on stuff that goes into deep technical
> waters. Nevertheless, it is perhaps worth evaluating what, if anything,
> can be done to improve the situation.]
>

The package group is related to the way rpm and debian packages are organized, 
and depends on the distribution. Gambas has a list of package groups for each 
supported distribution.

The menu entry is a related to a freedesktop.org standard that specify where 
the menu should go. Not really where is should go, but the categories it is 
associated with. 

It depends on the distribution too, and Gambas has a list of menu categories 
for each distribution too.

Note that different desktops choose to organize the menus differently for the 
same menu entries. Maybe this is the reason why the menu entry goes in 
the "Other" categories for you, maybe not. 

I did my tests with Mandriva, which gives the list of package groups and menu 
categories they use. For Ubuntu, I just took the package groups and menu 
entries of Debian. Maybe I was wrong, only a Ubuntu guru could tell...

Regards,

-- 
Benoit Minisini