unaccessability

[Les Howell]

On Sat, 2013-11-09 at 22:47 +0100, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Nov 2013 12:28:46 -0500 (EST), Christian Schaller wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > The core principle of the installer is that it operates on an application level and not a package level. The current way it determines if something is an application
> >  is by looking for a .desktop file. So in theory you could put a bitchx.desktop file  into the bitchx package and it would appear in the installer. That said I don't 
> > think it is generally a bad idea if command line/terminal applications are installed from the command line, but there is no hard policy blocking such applications from making themselves available in the installer.
> > 
> 
> Please don't let it install applications, which cannot be started via the
> graphical desktop user interface (such as a menu system or a list of
> installed Applications). Users, who install software with the help of a
> graphical program, expect that afterwards they can find and launch the
> installed software via the graphical desktop user interface. Alternatively,
> the installer ought to offer launching something as the next step.
> 
> If the installed software is only available at the command-line, there
> ought to be a big fat warning about that. Or a special category, or a
> hurdle to take, before a CLI program could be installed. It's similar with
> clicking ".rpm" packages on a web page. Installing them has become easy
> enough, but especially newbies are confused a lot, if the installation is
> successful but there seems to be no way to start the installed stuff.
> It's no helpful marketing, if in forums they get told that what they have
> installed is command-line only and doesn't show up in the desktop GUI
> anywhere. The installed thing ought to be "reachable" via the GUI, so
> e.g. for a service/daemon, there ought to be a way to locate that thing
> without having to use a terminal.
> 
> 

I have kind of been following this, but a command line program can be
launched using a launcher icon.  However in setting the properties, you
must choose which shell a particular CLI is designed to use, and since
Linux leaves choice of shell to the user, creating the launcher needs to
either choose the shell that it was designed to use (csh, bash,
tcsh....).  Along with that choosing the shell will have some other
consequences, such as error messages if the wrong shell is chosen, and
also what should the fallback be?

	I write a lot of stuff for shell execution, so I have managed to hit
lots of "odd stuff" from time to time, but if one doesn't understand the
cli at all, how would you explain her issues when she exits the command,
the terminal stays open, but now the shell may not behave as she
expects? 

	Just my own random thoughts on the matter.

Regards,
Les H