Linux .desktop file

[akovia]

Quote:Might be how Gimp is installed in Arch.  The .desktop file in Debian comes with the package, same for flatpak versions.

The .desktop file comes with with the Arch package as well. In fact, I believe it's identical to the source code, other than the one installed has all the different localizations included, but the English entries are the same.

It appears our installations are identical as well.

Code:

$ whereis gimp
gimp: /usr/bin/gimp /usr/lib/gimp /etc/gimp /usr/share/gimp /usr/share/man/man1/gimp.1.gz

$ ls -la /usr/bin/ | grep gimp
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root               9 Jun  8 03:28 gimp -> gimp-2.10
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root       9,897,736 Jun  8 03:28 gimp-2.10
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root              17 Jun  8 03:28 gimp-console -> gimp-console-2.10
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root       3,738,808 Jun  8 03:28 gimp-console-2.10
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root          30,544 Jun  8 03:28 gimp-debug-tool-2.0
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root          18,264 Jun  8 03:28 gimp-test-clipboard-2.0
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root              12 Jun  8 03:28 gimptool -> gimptool-2.0
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root          22,352 Jun  8 03:28 gimptool-2.0
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root               3 Jun  2 03:33 vgimport -> lvm
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root               3 Jun  2 03:33 vgimportclone -> lvm

What I meant about the "single word", was a user facing name or description. In this context, a word you could search and find the application you were looking for. I know Whisker menu is not the only implementation of a search interface for all programs. I believe Ubuntu Unity uses a similar interface and I'm sure there are more.

---

So upon a closer look, I realized that the single word was indeed in the .desktop file under Keywords. You would think that would be a searchable field, but Whisker menu could never find it until I added the word "Gimp"  to the Comment field. It always did find the "Run gimp" link like in your example, but I thought it should find the true .desktop file with the app icon after a fresh installation, without having to modify anything.

Now that I am thoroughly intrigued I have been trying to roll back my changes to do more testing but I haven't been able clear the mime-cache properly it seems. When I edited the Comment field before to include the word "Gimp", it created a local copy of the .desktop file with my changes that overrides the system default. /home/akovia/.local/share/applications/gimp.desktop

Even after deleting this file and my attempt to update the mime-cache, 
update-mime-database ~/.local/share/mime 
it still finds gimp every time, so I have no idea how to get back to square 1. What I do know is when it couldn't find gimp from the search, I edited the Comment to read "Gimp Image Editor", and then I could find it. 

I'm in the middle of transferring around a terabyte of data right now or I would try rebooting. I think in the end this may be a Whisker Menu issue and not a gimp issue. As they have the word GIMP listed as a Keyword, it seems Whisker Menu should find it without having to change the Name or Comment fields. In fact, I found another issue already when searching for Kodi. Whisker Menu can't find it even though the Name field is the word "Kodi"

   

Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Kodi
GenericName=Media Center
GenericName[zh_CN]=媒体中心
Comment=Manage and view your media
Comment[ru]=Просмотр и управление мультимедиа
Comment[zh_CN]=管理和查看您的媒体
Exec=kodi
Icon=kodi
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=AudioVideo;Video;Player;TV;Multimedia;

Actions=Fullscreen;Standalone;

[Desktop Action Fullscreen]
Name=Open in fullscreen
Name[zh_CN]=全屏打开
Exec=kodi -fs

[Desktop Action Standalone]
Name=Open in standalone mode
Name[zh_CN]=在独立模式下打开
Exec=kodi --standalone

I suppose I'll report a Whisker Menu bug. I really want to see what's going on here.