Re: Lost Desktop Icons in F11 [Partially Solved]

["Steven F. LeBrun" <steven@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 08/15/2009 01:39 PM, Anne Wilson wrote:

On Saturday 15 August 2009 16:33:40 Steven F. LeBrun wrote:
  

One thing that does bother me about my ~/.local/share/applications-bad
directory is that multiple desktop configuration files exist for the
same applications.  The worst case appears to be for Audacious; there
are seven different desktop configuration files for it.
    

Glad you're getting nearer.  I'm curious about this ^^ statement.  Can you 
look inside some of those files?  Do they look as though they actually are all 
for Audacious, or whether something else went wrong, like a corrupted index, 
that might cause them to be mis-named?

Are there many applications that have these duplicated file?  And are they 
applications that were in use (or being launched) at the time of corruption?

Anne
  

It appears that I am getting different results with different programs when I look at my application-bad directory.

When I use Nautilus, the default app used when opening my home directory, it lists multiple files with the same application name, in this example Audacious.  These file names do not include an extension and their type is listed as "desktop configuration file".

When I use Emacs to display the same directory, each file has a unique file name.  Grepping the directory yielded this list:

grep -nH -e Audacious *.*
alacarte-made-37.desktop:9:Name=Audacious
alacarte-made-37.desktop:10:Name[en_US]=Audacious
fedora-audacious.desktop:12:Name=Audacious
fedora-audacious-plugins.desktop:10:Name=Audacious
livna-audacious-aac.desktop:10:Name=Audacious
livna-audacious-alac.desktop:10:Name=Audacious
livna-audacious-mp3.desktop:10:Name=Audacious
livna-audacious-wma.desktop:10:Name=Audacious

My guess is that Nautilus is opening the desktop file and displaying the "name" value from within the file instead of the file name.  This provides the illusion that there are multiple files of the same name.

Up until now, and probably in the near future, I have not modified any of the gnome menu, directory and desktop files directly.  All my changes have been through applet available by right clicking on the main menu and select the "Edit Menus" option.

The Gnome Desktop System Administration Guide, section 2. Customizing Menus, provides the information on the format of the .menu, .directory and .desktop files and tells how they are scattered all over the system with system defaults and user overrides.  No wonder I could not tell how the menus are built; they use so many files and in many cases scan directories for more information to add to the menus.  Complex but once explained it is easy (relatively) to follow.   My hat is off to the people who QA this feature; there are so many variations that affect the Gnome menus it must have been a nightmare to test extensively.

BTW.  My hats are fedoras, completely independent of the OS that I am using.

--

  Steven F. LeBrun

Quote: "The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed."
     -- G.K. Chesterton

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