[Debian GNUstep maintainers] Nearly all GNUstep apps are missing from the GNOME Software catalog

[Josh Freeman]

Hi,

    Debian's & Ubuntu's GNOME Software app (GUI frontend for  
installing apps) has no listings for GNUstep apps, except TextEdit.

    This seems to be due to freedesktop's AppStream tool [1] failing  
to parse the apps for metadata, which prevents them from being added  
to the software catalog; Below is a list containing each GNUstep app's  
Appstream-issue page [2].

    Nearly all the apps have 'gui-app-without-icon' errors, where the  
AppStream tool is unable to figure out the app's icon path. This might  
be due to AppStream ignoring icon filepaths that don't begin with "/ 
usr/share/icons/" or "/usr/share/pixmaps/":
https://github.com/ximion/appstream-generator/blob/9776d8b37b839e5dacebada5db83fc4c44af0e47/src/asgen/contentsstore.d 
#L211

    If that's the cause of the 'gui-app-without-icon' errors, it  
appears that AppStream is making an incorrect assumption about allowed  
filepaths for icons; Are freedesktop icons required to be in one of  
those directories? If not, I'll file a bug on it, so hopefully GNUstep  
apps can get added to the GNOME catalog before Ubuntu 18.04 ships.

Cheers,

Josh


[1] https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Distributions/AppStream/


[2] AppStream issues for GNUstep apps - pulled from http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/index.html 
  :

* Icon-not-found
The icon 'Paje' was not found in the archive. This issue can have  
multiple reasons:
     The icon is not present in the archive.
     The icon is in a wrong directory.
     The icon is not available in a suitable size (at least 64x64px)
     On Debian and Ubuntu, the icon is a symlink. The generator cannot  
read symlinks on these distributions - make the icon a real file.
To make the icon easier to find, place it in /usr/share/icons/hicolor/ 
<size>/apps and ensure the Icon= value of the .desktop file is set  
correctly.

    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/paje.app.html


* Icon-format-unsupported:
Icon file '[*].tiff' uses an unsupported image file format.

    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/edenmath.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/lusernet.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/price.app.html


* Gui-app-without-icon:
The component is a GUI application (application which has a .desktop  
file for the XDG menu and Type=Application), but we could not find a  
matching icon for this application.

    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/aclock.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/addressmanager.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/adun.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/agenda.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/batmon.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/camera.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/cenon.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/charmap.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/ 
cynthiune.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/dictionaryreader.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/gnumail.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/gomoku.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/gorm.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/gridlock.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/grr.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/gtamsanalyzer.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/gworkspace.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/helpviewer.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/lynkeos.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/mpdcon.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/ 
pikopixel.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/ 
plopfolio.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/poe.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/preview.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/projectcenter.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/systempreferences.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/talksoup.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/terminal.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/timemon.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/volumecontrol.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/wrapperfactory.app.html
    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/zipper.app.html


* Metainfo-no-summary
Component does not contain a short summary. Ensure that the components  
metainfo file has a summary tag, or that its .desktop file has a  
Comment= field set.
More information can be found in the Desktop Entry specification and  
the MetaInfo specification.

    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/ftp.app.html


* Description-from-package (not an error):
This component gets its description from the package it is located in.
This has several disadvantages, like poor markup, too technical  
descriptions for users of software centers, different components  
having the same description, etc.
Please consider writing a metainfo file for this component to take the  
long description upstream. In future, components without metainfo file  
might be dropped from the metadata entirely. You can consult the XML  
quickstart guides for more information on how to write a metainfo file.

    http://appstream.ubuntu.com/bionic/universe/issues/textedit.app.html