Lintian check for missing desktop files?

[Andreas Tille <andreas@an3as.eu>]

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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