GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 721451
Forward: "Videos" is a very confusing name for a video player
Last modified: 2014-01-06 14:25:53 UTC
Origin: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/totem/+bug/1108977 Origin's description: 1. Right-click on a video file in the file manager. 2. After opening the file, choose "Help" > "About". What you see: 1. "Open With Videos" 2. "Videos" "Videos" "Totem Website". What's wrong with this: 1. Open a video with videos? That doesn't make any sense. I have a Videos folder, but this video is not in that folder. 2. The window is titled "About Videos", but doesn't tell me anything about videos. And then a wild Totem appears. This is a regression: In Ubuntu 12.10 and earlier, the program was called "Movie Player", which was pretty accurate. Duplicate： https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/totem/+bug/1192826 Duplicate's description: The .desktop file installed with totem in Xubuntu 13.04 has the application name "Videos". There are several problems with this: - It is not the name of the application. - It does not describe the purpose of the application. - It refers to only one kind of document that the application can handle. - It does not indicate that it can only play those documents, not modify or create them. - It does not distinguish itself from all the other applications that can handle the same documents. In short, it is so vague and ambiguous as to be confusing; basically less than useless. This is an issue in application launcher menus, MIME document associations, and in the "open with application..." context menus of certain file managers. In order to save unsuspecting users from madness, I suggest the .desktop file's Name field be updated to something like "Totem Movie Player" or "Media Player (Totem)".
The naming is in sync with other GNOME core applications such as "Files" (nautilus) or "Web" (epiphany). The fact that totem also provides further functionality (e.g. playing music) does not mean that it is recommended or needs to be advertised. For the "several problems" that you list, only "It does not indicate that it can only play those documents, not modify or create them" seems valid to me and an interesting case (might "Web" imply editing websites?).
It's really as designed. The Videos viewer on iOS is also called "Videos", on Android and Windows it has a brand name instead (Google Play Videos and Xbox Live Videos) but that's because they feel the need to differentiate those (Google Play Videos vs. Samsung Videos, or whatever) or force their brands onto the user (Xbox Live Videos offers an interface to the XBox Live video store). I'll close this as not a bug, as Totem/Videos is made to integrate in GNOME. Its appearance or branding in other desktops is second to that goal.