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

[Josh Freeman]

On Mar 18, 2018, at 9:16 AM, Yavor Doganov wrote:

> All .desktop files of GNUstep apps have (or at least they should have)
> absolute path for the Icon key, this is also what pl2link generates.
>
> I wonder how TextEdit is available when its icon is in
> /usr/share/GNUstep which is not part of the icon search path.


    Here's my guess:

    All the GNUstep app packages build & install the app with a /usr/ 
lib/GNUstep/Applications/ prefix, but then move the app's 'Resources'  
directory to /usr/share/GNUstep/, leaving a symbolic link in the  
original 'Resources' location pointing to the new one.

    Each package's Icon filepath (in the .desktop file) generally has  
the same /usr/lib/... prefix the app was built with; For instance,  
PikoPixel.desktop's Icon entry is:
Icon=/usr/lib/GNUstep/Applications/PikoPixel.app/Resources/ 
GNUstepAppIcon.png

    However, after the Resources directory is moved, PikoPixel's icon  
is actually at:
/usr/share/GNUstep/Applications/PikoPixel.app/GNUstepAppIcon.png

    Any software that supports symbolic links can still access the  
icon at the /usr/lib/... path, however, according to the AppStream's  
'icon-not-found' error message for Paje.app, it doesn't support  
symbolic links:

> * Icon-not-found
> The icon 'Paje' was not found in the archive. This issue can have  
> multiple reasons:
> ...
>    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.



    TextEdit.app's package installs a custom .desktop file instead of  
the one generated by gnustep-make. The custom file's Icon entry  
happens to use the direct filepath, which is probably why AppStream's  
able to find it:
Icon=/usr/share/GNUstep/TextEdit.app/accessories-text- 
editor_128x128x32.png

    Unfortunately, I can't easily test this guess - I installed the  
appstream-generator package (Buster), and there doesn't seem to be a  
way to run it on a local package, it only reads packages from the  
repository.

Cheers,

Josh