Debian Bug report logs - #879157
vim-common: Set NoDisplay=true for vim.desktop

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jeremy Bicha <jbicha@debian.org>

To: submit <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: vim-common: Set NoDisplay=true for vim.desktop

Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2017 17:25:56 -0400

Package: vim-common
Version: 2:8.0.1144-1
X-Debbugs-Cc:josh@joshtriplett.org
Tags: patch

vim.desktop was added to Debian so that text files could easily be
opened with vim. [1]

However, this also made Vim show up in the applications menu which
seems very odd for a terminal "app". It might not have been noticed by
GNOME users on Debian since the Debian GNOME team has blacklisted
vim.desktop from showing in GNOME's Activities Overview. [2]

The Desktop Entry Spec says

"NoDisplay means "this application exists, but don't display it in the
menus". This can be useful to e.g. associate this application with
MIME types, so that it gets launched from a file manager (or other
apps), without having a menu entry for it (there are tons of good
reasons for this, including e.g. the netscape -remote, or kfmclient
openURL kind of stuff)." [3]

Therefore, I think it would be very appropriate for vim.desktop to set
NoDisplay=true. I confirmed that this hides Vim from the Activities
Overview but it still shows up in the Open With dialog in GNOME.

Note that I am not proposing setting NoDisplay=true for gvim which is
closer to a traditional desktop app than vim.

I am attaching a patch in my next email to implement my proposal.

For completeness, I did propose this upstream and it was rejected (but
maybe I'll try again later). [4]

[1] https://bugs.debian.org/760512
[2] https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-gnome/desktop/unstable/gnome-menus/debian/menus.blacklist?view=markup
[3] https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/desktop-entry-spec-latest.html#recognized-keys
[4] https://github.com/vim/vim/pull/2212

Thanks,
Jeremy Bicha

Message #10 received at 879157@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jeremy Bicha <jbicha@debian.org>

To: 879157@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: vim-common: Set NoDisplay=true for vim.desktop

Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2017 17:33:48 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

[0001-vim.desktop-Set-NoDisplay-true.patch (text/x-patch, attachment)]

Message #15 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>

To: Jeremy Bicha <jbicha@debian.org>, 879157@bugs.debian.org

Cc: submit <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#879157: vim-common: Set NoDisplay=true for vim.desktop

Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2017 14:34:44 -0700

On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 05:25:56PM -0400, Jeremy Bicha wrote:
> Package: vim-common
> Version: 2:8.0.1144-1
> X-Debbugs-Cc:josh@joshtriplett.org
> Tags: patch
> 
> vim.desktop was added to Debian so that text files could easily be
> opened with vim. [1]
> 
> However, this also made Vim show up in the applications menu which
> seems very odd for a terminal "app". It might not have been noticed by
> GNOME users on Debian since the Debian GNOME team has blacklisted
> vim.desktop from showing in GNOME's Activities Overview. [2]
> 
> The Desktop Entry Spec says
> 
> "NoDisplay means "this application exists, but don't display it in the
> menus". This can be useful to e.g. associate this application with
> MIME types, so that it gets launched from a file manager (or other
> apps), without having a menu entry for it (there are tons of good
> reasons for this, including e.g. the netscape -remote, or kfmclient
> openURL kind of stuff)." [3]
> 
> Therefore, I think it would be very appropriate for vim.desktop to set
> NoDisplay=true. I confirmed that this hides Vim from the Activities
> Overview but it still shows up in the Open With dialog in GNOME.
> 
> Note that I am not proposing setting NoDisplay=true for gvim which is
> closer to a traditional desktop app than vim.
> 
> I am attaching a patch in my next email to implement my proposal.
> 
> For completeness, I did propose this upstream and it was rejected (but
> maybe I'll try again later). [4]

I don't think it's unreasonable to display vim in the menu. If you have
both vim and gvim installed, it ought to be easy to tell the difference,
but I don't see a good argument for hiding vim.desktop.

Message #25 received at 879157@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jeremy Bicha <jbicha@debian.org>

To: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>

Cc: 879157@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#879157: vim-common: Set NoDisplay=true for vim.desktop

Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2017 18:27:47 -0400

On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 5:34 PM, Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org> wrote:
> I don't think it's unreasonable to display vim in the menu. If you have
> both vim and gvim installed, it ought to be easy to tell the difference,
> but I don't see a good argument for hiding vim.desktop.

I use a terminal with tabs (gnome-terminal). I don't want to open a
new terminal when I want to edit a file but either use my existing tab
or open a new tab.

I don't want to see my applications menu full of aptitude, info, mc,
nano, w3m, etc.

I think it's worth mentioning that a large percentage of Debian users
already do not see vim.desktop. Handling this in vim directly seems to
make more sense to me than in a separate .desktop that most people
don't even know exists (the GNOME blacklist).

https://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=kde-plasma-desktop%2C+gnome-core%2C+xfce4%2C+cinnamon%2C+mate-desktop-environment-core%2C+e17%2C+lxde%2C+lxqt%2C+budgie-core&show_installed=on&want_legend=on&want_ticks=on&from_date=&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1

Thanks,
Jeremy Bicha

Message #30 received at 879157@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>

To: Jeremy Bicha <jbicha@debian.org>

Cc: 879157@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#879157: vim-common: Set NoDisplay=true for vim.desktop

Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2017 15:37:55 -0700

On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 06:27:47PM -0400, Jeremy Bicha wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 5:34 PM, Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org> wrote:
> > I don't think it's unreasonable to display vim in the menu. If you have
> > both vim and gvim installed, it ought to be easy to tell the difference,
> > but I don't see a good argument for hiding vim.desktop.
> 
> I use a terminal with tabs (gnome-terminal). I don't want to open a
> new terminal when I want to edit a file but either use my existing tab
> or open a new tab.

I *do* want to see terminal applications open in a new tab in an
existing terminal. That also applies to things like hitting the "edit"
button in It's All Text in Firefox.

- Josh Triplett

Message #35 received at 879157@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jeremy Bicha <jbicha@debian.org>

To: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>

Cc: 879157@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#879157: vim-common: Set NoDisplay=true for vim.desktop

Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2017 18:41:22 -0400

On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 6:37 PM, Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org> wrote:
> I *do* want to see terminal applications open in a new tab in an
> existing terminal. That also applies to things like hitting the "edit"
> button in It's All Text in Firefox.

Oh, gnome-terminal opens in New Window by default but I've changed
that locally now.

Jeremy Bicha

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