Multiple application visibility issues in Slingshot

[tim schoen]

I think normal users don't want to see the following apps:
- UXterm
- Xterm
- xdiagnose
- system testing (not sure about the english name)
- Ibus
- screenshot
- orca screenreader (not sure about the english name)
- disk usage (not sure about the english name)
- search files
- disk manager (not sure about the english name)
- passwords and keys (not sure about the english name)

the most of the should belong in some settings menu or something like that, but not in a launcher that should just launch real apps

we should make 1 app button called "Show Hidden Apps"

edit: show them in the search is a good idea!

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

I don't think we need a button to reveal them. Just don't show them, and show them in search *only* if there are no results for the search among visible apps.

[Cris Dywan (kalikiana)]

More importantly, *how* do you determine which apps to hide? By category perhaps?

I would actually tend to always show them in search. If you know they exist, or tech support asks you to open one, you need to see they exist.

[Avi Romanoff (aroman)]

My thinking: if it has a .desktop, it's in slingshot.

If an app doesn't deserve to have a .desktop, let's patch it/ask upstream. But creating some sort of filter/blacklist beyond that is gonna be a world of hurt.

[tim schoen (timschoen123-deactivatedaccount)]

I think a filter/blacklist is a pretty good idea, cause when you start removing .deskop files its gonna be even more hurt cause they will also not show up in other launchers and you can't add them to plank anymore, and i think filtering isn't that hard.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Not by category, there's some visibility parameter already. I'm not sure how exactly it works, but alacarte can toggle visibility (at least in GNOME2).

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

I have to agree with Christian that all desktops should always be available in search. But I also have to agree that there are a lot of useless desktops for most people.

I believe there is already a bug report about respecting the same file that alacarte writes to which would allow us as a distributor to hide these .desktops

If there's some attribute in the .desktop itself like a ShowInLauncher or something then we should definitely be watching that.

[tim schoen (timschoen123-deactivatedaccount)]

I think this should really happen be4 Luna! Slingshot now contains more trash than apps!

[xapantu (xapantu)]

Slingshot already supports this. This is how to do it:
- Install alacarte
- Edit /usr/share/alacarte/Alacarte/MenuEditor.py and replace all "applications.menu" by "pantheon-applications.menu"
- Then, launch alacarte
- You can change the hidden menu

- To make some default on elementaryos, take the files from ~/.config/menus/pantheon-applications.menu, and put them in /etc/skel.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

OK, I'll look into how those defaults are applied.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Also, I'm pretty sure there are system-wide defaults (e.g. not showing onboard or xdiagnose) and they're not involving /etc/skel.

[tim schoen (timschoen123-deactivatedaccount)]

this doesn't mean it's invalid, cause if a normal user install slingshot, it still comes up with those not needed apps.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Unity shows them too, so it's not a bug of Slingshot I suppose. Could anybody test GNOME Shell too?

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

I think I'll solve this for pantheon-session using XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable

[tim schoen (timschoen123-deactivatedaccount)]

but still there is a patch needed for slingshot, because not everybody is going to the install elementary os, some will install pantheon manually and they need a fix too.

[tim schoen (timschoen123-deactivatedaccount)]

sorry, your post's appear really late, i didn't see you added something :p

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

It should be fixed upstream, not with ugly hacks in Slingshot.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Now I need the following:
1) A list of apps to remove from menus
2) Info on how exactly alacarte removes items from menu

[tim schoen (timschoen123-deactivatedaccount)]

i can make a list, but i'd like you to check if it's right. i'm using dutch eos so i'm 100% not sure about all names.

- UXterm
- Xterm
- xdiagnose
- system testing
- Ibus
- screenshot
- orca screenreader
- disk usage
- search files
- disk manager
- passwords and keys
- log view (not sure about name)
- scanning (should be in switchboard)
- onboard
- onboard settings
- keyboard mapping
- back- up
- Dconf
- make boot dist
- characters and symbols
- network connections
- input method switcher

also there are 2 double apps, cause there under 2 catagory's. those are:
- Evince (graphics and office)
- Libre Office Draw (graphics and office)
-

[tim schoen (timschoen123-deactivatedaccount)]

*make boot disk

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

tim: there's a lot of crap I was supposed to ditch from the OS completely. I'll check if I did...

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

I don't feel comfortable with shipping a pre-generated menu cache. I'll just copy over and patch .desktop files for now, but I should look into dotdee or something like that as a long-term goal.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Even longer term goal: get NoShowIn=Pantheon integrated upstream

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

OK, I've pushed a desktop file overlay in pantheon-xsession-settings package, because it's activated only in pantheon session. This should get most of stuff we don't need out of Slingshot. I've also removed gucharmap and seahorse from the ISO.

[tim schoen (timschoen123-deactivatedaccount)]

but does this mean they will also be gone in search?

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

I don't think so. The only way to know for sure is to try ;)

[tim schoen (timschoen123-deactivatedaccount)]

No, they don't appear in search. Your xsession branch is great btw! I'm really happy with my new slingshot! it's a huge improvement

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Looks like my approach kinda works, but that .menu thing seems to be more maintainable.

[tim schoen (timschoen123-deactivatedaccount)]

Do you already have an idea to let them show in the search?

[Eduard Gotwig (gotwig)]

I think users shouldn't see "Network settings" or "Network conntections"

[Eduard Gotwig (gotwig)]

*connections

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

I'm leaning towards fixing this in Slingshot's .menu now