Debian Menu System
Chapter 3 What packages with applications should do

3.1 Registering your applications

A package should provide a menu file /usr/lib/menu/<package-name> that contains information about each program it likes to make available in the menus.

Here is an example to describe the syntax of such a file:

       ?package(gnuplot):\            specifies what packages need to be installed
          needs=text\                 what kind of terminal this command expects
                                      needs=X11: if this program runs only on X11
                                      needs=text: if it only runs on text terminals
                                                (the window manager should spawn 
                                                 an xterm or rxvt in this case)
                                      needs=vc: runs only at linux console
                                      needs=wm: this starts another window manager
          section=Apps/Math\          in what section this menu entry should be
          title="Gnuplot"\            the title of the menu entry
                                      (please make it short!)
          command="/usr/bin/gnuplot"  the command to run.

A program like gnuplot which can be run on X11 as well as on a text terminal should not have an extra entry with needs=X11 because it will then be next to impossible to configure the window managers to spawn rxvt instead of the default xterm.

On the other hand, if a program (like emacs) can be run as real X application as well as in a terminal, two entries should be listed, otherwise the program will always be run in an xterm (or rxvt).

In the menu entry files, you can use "#" as comment (like in shell scripts).

You should add a line like this to your postinst script

      if test -x /usr/bin/update-menus; then update-menus; fi

and the postrm script should get the line

      if test -x /usr/bin/update-menus; then update-menus; fi

(that is, the same line in postinst and in postrm).

3.2 Preferred menu structure

Here is the authoritative list of Debian's menu structure. If you have a package which does not fit in here or if you have any suggestions how to improve this structure, please send an email to the maintainer of the menu package, Joost Witteveen joostje@debian.org. If you have more general remarks about restructuring the menu tree (or adding an entry that may require discussion), the best thing to do is to go to debian-policy, and start a discussion there. I (Joost) will without hesitation change the structure of the menu-tree if a decision was reached on debian-policy, but I'm very reluctant to changes without prior discussion.

Please do not put your packages into any other sections without asking for permission first!

            Apps            - normal apps
              Editors       - editors (run it in xterm, if nothing else)
              Emulators     - dosemu, etc.
              Graphics      - xpaint, xfig, xtiff, etc.
              Hamradio      - Anything relating to ham radio.
              Math          - gnuplot, octave, oleo, etc.
              Net           - mail, news, web, irc, etc.