Your message dated Mon, 8 Sep 2008 17:43:19 +0200
with message-id <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
and subject line implemented elsewhere already (or please file seperate bugs if 
thats not enough)
has caused the Debian Bug report #363486,
regarding dpkg: [update-alternatives] New categories for: WORD, EXCEL, 
MEDIA-PLAYER etc.
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
363486: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=363486
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] with problems
--- Begin Message ---
Package: dpkg
Version: 1.13.18
Severity: wishlist

There are many programs that act on a file that contains certain extension
or if they support MIME types, they look up the program associated with it.

The problem is that there are many programs to do the same thing. For example
Person trying to open "File Manager" must remmeber that the
esoteric names are

        xfe
        mfm
        emelfm
        worker
        krusader
        endeavour2
        rox-filer
        thunar 
        ...

The same problem is with Office programs:

        lyx
        abiword
        oowriter
        ...

The /etc/alternatives contains a good framework to canonicalize actions to
common names available in system and to control the preferred program.

SUGGESTION

Create new alternatives with names something like:

        office-word             or just Industry de facto "word"
        ooffice-excel           or just Industry de facto "excel"
        file-manager
        archiver                The X counterpart for Win32 "WinZip"
        media-player            For video               
        music-player            For music

This way numerous programs could refer to common program "music-player",
which the arternatives frame work would provide. The generic names would
also add simplicity to overall handling of the various binaries that
would hook themselves to the alternatives base.

Small window managers (Other than the KDE, Gnome, Xfce) would also
benefit from this, because they could use generic menu items and call
the "alternatives" name without the need to refer to certain binary,
which may not be installed.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.16-1-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ISO-8859-1) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US)

Versions of packages dpkg depends on:
ii  coreutils [textutils]         5.94-1     The GNU core utilities
ii  libc6                         2.3.6-7    GNU C Library: Shared libraries

dpkg recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information


--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Hi,

as one can read in this bug report, this feature is either implemented 
elsewhere (either via /etc/mailcap or via the Freedesktop.org MIME database). 

If one really wants alternatives (as in update-alternatives (8)) implemented 
you should file bugs against the specific packages.

Thus closing.


regards,
        Holger

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