Re: .desktop file handling

[Shawn Sörbom <shawn@sorbom.com>]

On Thursday, September 15, 2016 13:22:33 Jens Reyer wrote:
> On 15.09.2016 09:21, Shawn Sörbom wrote:
> > Hi
> > I have run into a few projects lately that don't include .desktop files
> > but
> > should. my usual approach to handle this is to write a patch with quilt
> > that writes a .desktop file to the project's root directory, then add a
> > corresponding line to the debian/[package].install file. I know this
> > approach works, but is it the "right" way? Does it matter?
> 
> There's also the command desktop-file-install (in the optional package
> desktop-file-utils) which validates and installs the desktop file. I'd
> use that command at least once for the validation.
> 
> For installation in Debian it is unnecessary (Debian policy 9.6 tells us
> that for installing it is not necessary because of dpkg triggers.
> Further I found that at least in Gnome manually copying (no dpkg) to
> /usr/share/applications has an immediate effect).
> 
> Still upstream might be interested in that (not sure).
> 
> 
> A quick look to sources.debian.net shows a clear preference for simply
> installing desktop files:
> 
> .desktop in debian/*install:          95 pages of results [1]
> desktop-file-install in debain/rules:  2 results [2]
> 
> [1]
> https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=path%3A%2Fdebian%2F.*install+.*deskto
> p+
> 
> [2]
> https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=path%3A%2Fdebian%2Frules+desktop-file
> -install+
> 
> Greets
> jre

Thanks all,
This helps alot. I suspect this is happening in packages that aren't primarily 
built on freedesktop.org compliant environments because some of the projects 
do have icons, but no .desktop and no cmake/autoconf installation rules for 
it...weird.
--Shawn