Bug 56092

Summary:	XFCE .desktop file created for browser selection is broken
Product:	Portland	Reporter:	random832
Component:	xdg-utils	Assignee:	Portland Bugs <portland-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	medium
Version:	1.1.0 rc1
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux (All)
Whiteboard:
i915 platform:		i915 features:
Attachments:	patch to convert multi-group desktop file to XFCE WebBrowser helper file

Description random832 2012-10-17 15:41:32 UTC

XFCE requires a special format of .desktop file for what it calls "helpers". This requirement is handled by the check_xfce_desktop_file function in xdg-settings. The function "converts" an existing application .desktop file by removing the Type line and adding the so-called custom tweaks it requires.

This breaks when the application .desktop file has multiple sections (for example, the chromium-browser.desktop that is present on Ubuntu).

I propose that instead of "converting" an existing application .desktop file, when an existing XFCE helper .desktop file is not found it should create a minimal one with only the necessary content. This would match more closely to what what is done by XFCE's own preferred applications GUI when you browse for a path to select a browser. It should be noted that the GUI always creates "custom-WebBrowser.desktop" rather than [application].desktop, but this behavior does not appear to be important and I am not sure yet if it is desirable (I need to do more testing with how Chromium detects that it is not the default browser to be sure).

I have already started working on a new version of this function, but have not finished testing yet. I will attach it later this week.

Comment 1 Ken Neighbors 2014-09-19 17:16:03 UTC

Created attachment 106561 [details] [review]
patch to convert multi-group desktop file to XFCE WebBrowser helper file

I made this patch against the "1.1.0 rc3" version obtained from the git repository on 2014-09-18.

Comment 2 Ken Neighbors 2014-09-19 17:17:12 UTC

I ran into this problem when selecting "Google Chrome" as my default in XFCE.  Upon starting Google Chrome it would report "Google Chrome isn't your default browser" and I would click "Set as default".  But when I later ran another application (KeePassX), it would say there was no default browser set, and would ask me to choose one (using the XFCE prefferred application chooser), so I would choose "Google Chrome" again.  When Google Chrome was restarted, it would again say it was not the default, and this cycle would endlessly repeat unless you click "Don't ask again" and just set it in the XFCE preferred application chooser.  I found the root cause of this problem is the broken XFCE helper file created by xdg-settings when encountering a desktop file with multiple groups, such as those used to support "X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts".

Comment 3 Rex Dieter 2014-09-19 17:42:19 UTC

Patch applied, thanks!

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