[ubuntu-studio-devel] Our Set of Freedesktop Categories

[Len Ovens]

On Sat, 27 Jun 2015, Kaj Ailomaa wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 27, 2015, at 06:53 PM, Len Ovens wrote:
>> Video has two Categories we are interested in:
>>  	AudioVideo
>>  	Player
>> Anything with Player and AudioVideo (even if it includes other things)
>> will end up in multimedia players.
>>
>> If it is not Video, We should see at least Audio. Anything without Audio
>> that has AudioVideo is video, any of these without Player is Video
>> Production.
>>
>
> According to the Freedesktop standard, if you add Audio, or Video, you
> must also add AudioVideo. So, either AudioVideo;Audio, or
> AudioVideo;Video. Having all three I don't think is against any rule,

Yes, Anywhere I have said Audio, I am assuming AudioVideo as well. I am 
only stating the ones we need to filter with.

> and is only sensible if there are no other categories that further
> define the desktop file. So, at least one of these two:
> * AudioVideo;Audio
> * AudioVideo;Video

Yes, except that AudioVideo;Audio and AudioVideo would be enough so long 
as All the Audio applications have AudioVideo;Audio. Most Video 
Applications are AudioVideo and it is hard to argue they should include 
Video without most of them also being Audio, ie. AudioVideo;Audio;Video;

> A player, like VLC might only need:
> * AudioVideo;Player

Yes, and most of them are already.

> But, these won't work:
> * Audio;Player
> * Video;Player
> * Audio;Video;Player

Right Lintian should dump them out. They will actually "work" The menu sw 
doesn't really care if AudioVideo is there or not, but they would not be 
correct.

> Also, the menu in itself does not really affect our work on the
> freedesktop categories. We have to choose correct categories that seem
> logical for each application, and later we can see which categories we
> end up using in our menu, all though some categories are pretty clear
> already.

True enough. I am only thinking our menu is the best place to start as it 
affects what we put out. However, I have always wanted the software a user 
adds after the fact to show up in the right place as well.

>> Tuner may be used in two ways, some people include it for an FM tuner and
>> others use it for an instrument tuner. The FM tuner should have Player as
>> well, In my opinion.
>
> Player specifies something that plays audio or video files. A tuner does
> not do that, right?

An FM tuner or TV tuner plays an RF Audio/AudioVideo stream in effect. An 
instrument tuner analyzes incoming audio and compares it to known 
frequencies. Playing is not just files, it applies to streams too.

> I do think we should add the Tuner to the multimedia playback category
> in the menu though.

Yes, the instrument tuner would be comfortable in Utility, 
AudioVideo;Audio;Utility or AudioVideo;Audio;X-AudioUtility. It would not 
be out of place in Accessories so to me the second uses the best 
combination with no new categories.

>> What do we do with Blender?
>
> I started thinking more about our extra categories, and realized
> something. Blender is both Graphics and AudioVideo. In more detail, it's
> 3DGraphics, and our newly created X-VideoEditing.
> And, with that, Blender would have something like:
>    Categories:Graphics;3DGraphics;AudioVideo;Video;AudioVideoEditing;X-VideoEditing
>
> But, since the combo of Video and AudioVideoEditing makes it possible to
> filter video editing applications only, there is no need for
> X-VideoEditing (and the same goed for X-AudioEditing in audio
> applications).

Yes :) I agree X-VideoEditing and X-AudioEditing are not needed.

> I'm starting to think the latter is the way to go actually. Less custom
> categories, but with the same result.
>
> In the case of Ardour
>   Categories:AudioVideo;Audio;AudioVideoEditing;Sequencer;Recorder

Seems fine. I suspect that will happen at the debian level but maybe not 
the ardour level. Hard to tell though.

> The combination of Sequencer, AudioVideoEditing and Recorder makes it
> possible to classify it as a DAW.

Yup.

> LMMS can't record though, can it (I have to admit I don't use it much)?

It didn't before and while I had heard rumours audio recording was being 
added, the web page and faq etc. ( https://lmms.io/ ) do not show any way 
of getting audio in except as files.

> It is often regarded as a DAW, in which case perhaps it is enough to use
> the combo of Sequencer and AudioVideoEditing to classify something as a
> DAW. In any case, there is not absolute need for X-DAW (no matter if we
> use it as a menu item or not).

I agree. The X-effects and X-Instruments would be great. Anything with 
MIDI, but not X-effects, X-Istruments or sequencer can be a midi utility.
Getting Mixer added to all the ALSA mixers would be a real treat too. It 
seems the ones that come with ALSA are the worst. There is also 
HardwareSettings (subbed on Settings, but could be used with 
AudioVideo;Audio as well (Settings;HardwareSettings;AudioVideo;Audio) if 
the actual application would be "ok" in the settings menu.

There are a number of applications that use X-Jack. This may help put 
things like xjadeo in the right place.

> Coming back to Blender, I would personally like it if there was a
> special desktop file to start Blender in video editing mode, in which
> case there would be two desktop files for two purposes.

Making another desktop file is easy... finding a commandline that starts 
Blender as NLE or 3D creator is not. It can be configured to always start 
one way or the other... but a command line option would be nice. That 
should be a feature request. I think having the two desktop files in the 
two categories would go a long way to making Blender something more people 
would use. Right now anyone looking for a video NLE will open a graphics 
3D tool and close it again. (even if they know it may be used for video 
editing because the menu option for switching it over is not inuitive)

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net