GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 654775
desktop file required to add to favorites in the dash
Last modified: 2021-07-05 14:41:39 UTC
# apt-cache show gnome-shell Package: gnome-shell Version: 3.0.2-1 # uname -a Linux schlepptop 2.6.39-2-amd64 #1 SMP Tue Jul 5 02:51:22 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux I'm using debian testing with Gnome3 out of experimental/unstable. I want to use the current releases of Firefox and Thunderbird, so i download them and unzip them to opt. Then I do "ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox" and the same for thunderbird. Fx and Tb can be opened via Alt+F2 and typing "firefox" or "thunderbird" and there is the icon at the shells left side. But if i add them to the favorites and close them, the icons take no effect. No Fx or Tb are starting after clicking the icon.
I forgot to mention that it's the same issue with the java-homebanking tool jameica/hibiscus [1] that's unzipped to /opt/ and linked to /usr/local/bin due to missing debian packages. Does the favorite bar only work with programmes installed via apt? Is this a wanted behaviour or a bug? [1] http://www.willuhn.de/products/jameica/
Applications require a .desktop file to be tracked and launched, yes.
Thank you, works fine after creating .desktop files. Are there any possibilities and plans to make this more user-friendly in coming releases? I guess there are a lot of people that use some programs that are not in their distributions repositories and some may be not willing to manually create .desktop files. btw, i'm using Gnome3 for 3 days now and i think i like it. There are some things that could get improved but it's very good to use according to that it's the first version of a completely new surface/DE.
Created attachment 192144 [details] [review] appFavorites: forbid to add applications without desktop It show the reason in notification area.
(In reply to comment #4) > Created an attachment (id=192144) [details] [review] > appFavorites: forbid to add applications without desktop > > It show the reason in notification area. Instead of showing a message, why not just help the user and create the correctly named .desktop file in ~/.config/ ?
> Instead of showing a message, why not just help the user and create the > correctly named .desktop file in ~/.config/ ? We can get executable name with command line and environment variables (and put this in desktop file). It will not work in some cases. For emxample: 1. application can be started via script (google-chrome) 2. application can have gui as separate executable
Review of attachment 192144 [details] [review]: ::: js/ui/appFavorites.js @@ +87,3 @@ + if (app.is_transient()) { + let message = _("%s can't be added to favorites.").format(app.get_name()); + let body = _("Application doesn't have desktop file."); This is a worthless error message for the user. What is a "desktop file"? How can my application get one? IMHO, we should just disable icon dragging for transient applications and put a separator between them and real apps.
I prefer Maxims suggestion. In one of the actual cases, when it's not possible you can use the way Jasper suggested.
(In reply to comment #6) > > Instead of showing a message, why not just help the user and create the > > correctly named .desktop file in ~/.config/ ? > We can get executable name with command line and environment variables (and put > this in desktop file). > It will not work in some cases. > For emxample: > 1. application can be started via script > (google-chrome) > 2. application can have gui as separate executable FWIW the old alt+f2 run dialog could automatically create desktop files for launching arbitrary commands.
Do we have a suggestion for this one? Adel?
*** Bug 688592 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 766995 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
GNOME is going to shut down bugzilla.gnome.org in favor of gitlab.gnome.org. As part of that, we are mass-closing older open tickets in bugzilla.gnome.org which have not seen updates for a longer time (resources are unfortunately quite limited so not every ticket can get handled). If you can still reproduce the situation described in this ticket in a recent and supported software version, then please follow https://wiki.gnome.org/GettingInTouch/BugReportingGuidelines and create a new ticket at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/ Thank you for your understanding and your help.