Alacarte creates extra copies of existing desktop entries when viewing them

[Till Ulen]

Binary package hint: alacarte

Steps to reproduce:

1. Run alacarte by choosing System ▸ Preferences ▸ Main Menu.
2. Choose Applications ▸ Accessories in the Menus list on the left.
3. Choose Calculator and press Properties to find out how to run it from the command line.
4. Close the Launcher Properties window (you didn't mean to change anything).
5. Close alacarte.

Actual results

Examine the ~/.local/share/applications directory. Alacarte has just created a gcalctool.desktop file there. It is a copy of /usr/share/applications/gcalctool.desktop, the content is identical.

Expected behavior

Nothing should be created in ~/.local/share/applications unless the user makes some actual changes to the desktop entry.

What's going to happen if after an upgrade the system-wide version of gcalctool.desktop is updated? The user will likely have the old one saved in her home directory! And she didn't choose to "hold" the desktop entry or make it exempt from upgrades somehow. The user just wanted to view it.

Workaround

After viewing an entry in alacarte, right-click it and choose Revert to Original in the context menu. Close alacarte. It will delete the corresponding .desktop file.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: alacarte 0.13.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-24.38-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-24-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Aug 3 20:30:31 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: alacarte