Lintian check for missing desktop files?
Hi,
as I explained on Debian Med list[1] the existence of a desktop file is
nearly as relevant as a manpage for a good user experience for users who
are not that addicted to the command line as most of us are. I have not
made any stats how many packages with applications which deserve a
desktop file to show up in UIs implementing the freedesktop.org
specification but I think I'm not wrong if I roughly estimate it with
"below 50%". In cases like this a lintian check has leaded to
interesting results (see "missing manpage"). While I'm not a lintian
expert I'd consider the following criterion as reasonable for a check
* package has a file in /usr/bin
* package name does not match '^lib' or '-doc$'
* package has dependencies from "typical" libraries for
freedesktop.org implementing interfaces which are for instance
- libgnome2-0
- libkdeui5
- libxfce4ui-1-0
- libgtk-3-0
- libqtgui4
- ...
Please excuse if my choice of the libraries is not optimal - I'm
not an expert in this field but I hope you get the idea.
* No file /usr/share/applications/*.desktop in the package
If all these criterions are fullfilled a lintian warning about a missing
desktop file could (should (!) IMHO) be issued.
What do you think?
Kind regards
Andreas.
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-med/2011/03/msg00025.html
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