Re: autoconf/automake: handling the installation of desktop files / icons

[James K. Lowden]

On Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:51:57 -0800
Christopher Howard <address@hidden> wrote:

> in Gentoo, which installs from
> source, $datadir gets changes by the package manager to a special
> games data directory, which is one which is not checked by the
> desktop menu programs, so my desktop file and icons do not appear in
> those menus. 
...
> * is there some kind of autoconf macro which figures out where
> freedesktop .desktop files and icons should be installed and provides
> a variable?

There must be some reliable way to interrogate the environment for the
name of that "special games data directory".  Perhaps a utility that
reports it, something like pkg-config.  Maybe a file in a known
location e.g. /etc.  Maybe even an environment variable.  After all,
other packages face the same question.  

Once you know how to discover the directory name, you can set another
variable, not $datadir, to that location.  If the operation fails
(because it's not Gentoo) you can set your variable to the value of
$datadir.  

Would that do the trick?  

--jkl