Broken .desktop files

Do you maintain or have commit access or one of these applications:

  • echomixer
  • envy24control
  • hdspconf
  • hdspmixer
  • hwmixvolume
  • alsamixergui
  • brasero
  • camorama
  • cheese
  • clementine
  • cutecw
  • easytag
  • flumotion-admin
  • fmtools
  • gimmix
  • gmpc
  • gnaural
  • gnomad2
  • gnome-chord
  • gnome-scale
  • gnomebaker
  • gqradio
  • grip
  • gtk-recordmydesktop
  • gtkpod
  • gtkwhiteboard
  • guitarix
  • gxine
  • idjc
  • isomaster
  • gnome-istanbul
  • jack-rack
  • kover
  • ladi-system-tray
  • lash-panel
  • lingot
  • nxtvepg
  • oxine
  • pencil
  • pianobooster
  • picard
  • pitivi
  • qt-recordmydesktop
  • qv4l2
  • rhythmbox (bug filed)
  • seq24
  • sonata
  • soundconverter
  • sweep
  • themonospot-gtk
  • themonospot-qt
  • v4l2ucp
  • vkeybd

If your application is listed here, it will not be in the GNOME Software center as the .desktop file has AudioVideo but not Audio or Video. If you’ve got an app that plays music, you want to have at least “AudioVideo;Audio;” or if you’ve got an app that deals with audio and video you want at least “AudioVideo;Video;Audio;”. The freedesktop menu specification is a little odd in this regard.

If you fix this before 3.10.0 then it’ll magically work in the new software center.

Published by

hughsie

Richard has over 10 years of experience developing open source software. He is the maintainer of GNOME Software, PackageKit, GNOME Packagekit, GNOME Power Manager, GNOME Color Manager, colord, and UPower and also contributes to many other projects and opensource standards. Richard has three main areas of interest on the free desktop, color management, package management, and power management. Richard graduated a few years ago from the University of Surrey with a Masters in Electronics Engineering. He now works for Red Hat in the desktop group, and also manages a company selling open source calibration equipment. Richard's outside interests include taking photos and eating good food.

6 thoughts on “Broken .desktop files”

  1. Hi, just a heads up… The MusicBrainz folks are now aware of the issue with Picard’s desktop file, and we should be able to get a fix into the next release. Picard isn’t a GNOME project, so the next release won’t necessarily align with GNOME 3.10, however.

  2. My reading of the specification differs from your interpretation. It says Audio requires AudioVideo but not the other way around, nor does desktop-file-validate tool complain about having just AudioVideo present without Audio (or Video).

    Am I missing something?

    1. It’s kinda confusing. The idea for AudioVideo was for desktops that didn’t want an Audio and Video section in the menu structure, but wanted “Audio & Video”. In the GNOME software center, the designers wanted Audio and Video split out as two different things. From my point of view, the desktop files are broken as if you’re running a DE that shows Audio and Video as separate menuitems, the app is going to show in neither. Which is a bug in my eyes.

  3. In the case of Brasero I’ve just skim read the spec and it’s still pretty unclear to me. In the ‘Additional Categories’ section ‘DiscBurning’ has a ‘Related Categories’ column of ‘AudioVideo’, whereas other additional categories list related categories of ‘AudioVideo;Video’ and ‘Audio or Video or AudioVideo’.

    It seems that for Brasero to appear in Software I need to add the Audio and Video Categories but it seems wrong, it doesn’t seem right that Brasero would show up under *both* Audio and Video menus.

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