Debian menu format

I've been trying to write a Debian-menu reader in Python. I'm falling foul
of the evil syntax of the menu definitions. The seem to be treated as
little scripts in some secret script language that I can't find details of.
Admittedly, I haven't spent too long looking...

Anyway, do we really want to use their format, or could we instead use a
more portable Python script format? How much support do we want for
machines without Python installed in this? It just seems crazy to go
reimplementing wheel.py... ;)

I'd suggest a simple conversion like:
    ?package(foal):needs=x11,command=foal.py,...
becoming:
    if have_package("foal"): Item(needs="x11",command="foal.py",...)

The second would be python exec'd and would create a menu Item with the
relevant properties.

If people prefer the normal format then someone really will have to
implement the install-menu program. :(

---
James "Wez" Weatherall
          "The path to enlightenment is /usr/bin/enlightenment"
Laboratory for Communications Engineering, Cambridge - Tel : 766513
AT&T Labs Cambridge, UK                              - Tel : 343000