GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 662264
"System Monitor" name conflicts with KDE's "System Monitor"
Last modified: 2013-02-10 22:59:42 UTC
As was heavily discussed in the mega-thread a few months ago on the desktop-devel-list and kde-core-devel mailing lists, the use of the same names by GNOME & KDE for System Settings and System Monitor makes it difficult for users who happen to have both desktops installed. KDE has a short term fix for this in their master branches by renaming System Settings to KDE System Settings when not run in the KDE desktop, and a request has been made for KDE's System Monitor to not show in GNOME's menus. gnome-control-center has OnlyShowIn=GNOME;Unity; set. Please use NotShowIn=KDE; in gnome-system-monitor's desktop file.
Created attachment 209444 [details] [review] Don't show in KDE menus since they have their own "System Monitor"
Review of attachment 209444 [details] [review]: Patch looks good, simple and should work.
Review of attachment 209444 [details] [review]: Robert, you're not a maintainer of this package so I don't think it's appropriate for you to mark this patch as accepted-commit_now.
Only a maintainer can review a patch? I didn't know that. You are right, I'm not the maintainer, but a developer of System Monitor, so I don't think marking a good-looking simple patch as commit now could do any harm. In case only the maintainer can review patches, why do I have the possibility to do it? If I shouldn't do it, I won't do it anymore, but I think the maintainer (Chris Kuehl) doesn't mind if a patch is already reviewed, and he only has to take a quick glimpse over it and commit it.
OK, maybe you should ask Chris if you should be added as a co-maintainer then? Attachment 209444 [details] pushed as 97374df - Don't show in KDE menus since they have their own "System Monitor"
Lets not give Robert a hard time. ;) This is an adequate quick fix but I do think there may be a better way to do this. This patch completely hides g-s-m from the entire KDE menu where a generic name change (from 'System Monitor' to 'GNOME System Monitor' may be better), in the case we're on a non-GNOME desktop, may be better. I can very well imagine a user who has installed kde and then installed g-s-m wanting to have g-s-m show up in their menu. ...and I will be sending Robert an email in the coming days about maintainership, including a summary of conversations that are happening here at GUADEC around g-s-m. I'm reopening for now.
I don't agree on calling the app 'GNOME System Monitor' as adding GNOME is against the HIG [1]: "Do not include words like "GNOME", "X Window System", "GTK+" or other platform details in Application menu names. The user probably already knows what platform they are using, and if they don't, then application names are not the right place to inform them." We could ask the design team to suggest some better names, as there are some plans for an updated design[2], etc., so giving a name for it would be a good start. The current gnome live design page [3] calls the (System Monitor+baobab) application 'Usage', but I don't think that's a good name. If anyone knows who to CC for design feedback, please add to the CC list, as I couldn't find this info, my searches only revealed to start pinging on #gnome-design. [1] http://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/3.5/desktop-application-menu.html.en#menu-item-names [2] https://live.gnome.org/Design/Apps/Usage [3] https://live.gnome.org/Design/Apps
I'm not suggesting calling it by it's full name under GNOME, where the HIG applies. I'm saying we need it to show up some way in KDE and they don't like it being called 'System Monitor' there. Thus, under KDE it should show up as 'GNOME System Monitor.' The only way I know for this to work is to have 2 .desktop files; one using NotShowIn=KDE and the other using OnlyShowIn=KDE. Any better suggestions?
> Any better suggestions? My suggestion would be to just not worry about this. If you install gnome + kde at the same time, you essentially have two complete operating systems at the same time, and you can probably deal with the cognitive challenge to discriminate between thing1 and thing2
@Matthias Clasen: basically I would agree with you, but as the original request says we should have a NotShowIn=KDE in the desktop file (this has already been implemented), right now in KDE GNOME System Monitor does not appear at all. As changing this by removing the NotShowIn=KDE would bring up the same request again, I agree with Chris that having two desktop files would fix this, and make most people happy. Do you have anything against that solution (although your argument why we should not worry about seems valid, but contradicts the reason why this bug has been filed)?
If you think it adds value, I don't have any objections.
This problem has been fixed in the development version. The fix will be available in the next major software release. Thank you for your bug report.