Bug#540484: lintian: new check + tag: desktop-entry-missing-recommended-key

[Sune Vuorela <Sune@vuorela.dk>]

On Sunday 13 September 2009 03:45:17 you wrote:
> Sune Vuorela <Sune@vuorela.dk> writes:
> > Please don't implement this wish.
> 
> (This is about having Lintian diagnose all packages that don't have a
> StartupNotification key in .desktop.)
> 
> Not being involved in desktop package maintenance, I have no idea what
> this whole thing is about.  Could you fill in some more details?

There are many "optional keys" in the desktop file specification, that in some 
cases can provide extra information.

In this case, the StartupNotification key.

The spec says about the StartupNotification key:

| If true, it is KNOWN that the application will send a "remove" message when 
| started with the DESKTOP_STARTUP_ID environment variable set. If false, it 
| is KNOWN that the application does not work with startup notification at all 
| (does not shown any window, breaks even when using StartupWMClass, etc.). If 
| absent, a reasonable handling is up to implementations (assuming false, 
| using StartupWMClass, etc.). (See the Startup Notification Protocol 
| Specification for more details).

Every one implementing something working with desktop files will have read 
this and knows that they need to do a 'reasonable handling' if this key isn't 
present and how to handle the two possible values.

I see no reason why we should ask debian package maintainers to add this key 
to their desktop files.

And a bit statistics on my system:

/usr/share/applications$ find . | while read file ; do if grep -q 
^StartupNotify $file ; then grep ^StartupNotify $file ; else echo no ; fi ; 
done | sort | uniq -c
    364 no
     14 StartupNotify=false
     54 StartupNotify=true

/Sune
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