gnome-panel doesn't let me add locations

[Brian J. Murrell]

Binary package hint: gnome-panel

When I try to add a new location to the panel's clock, it pops up the dialog that let's me select a location just fine, but when I click OK on that dialog after selecting a location, the list of locations does not have my new location added.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Nov 5 08:29:23 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: gnome-panel 1:2.28.0-0ubuntu6
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: gnome-panel
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. The issue is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug the to the people writting the software (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

not confirming there

[Brian J. Murrell (brian-interlinx)]

On Fri, 2009-11-06 at 15:22 +0000, Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> Thank you for your bug report. The issue is an upstream one and it would
> be nice if somebody having it could send the bug the to the people
> writting the software (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME)

Why do I bother to open any bugs with Ubuntu if I have to go and re-open
them upstream as well?

Very well. When I get a moment I will do so.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

we do work on bugs that affect most users but we don't have the ressources to work on minor issue happening to one user there

[Andrew Fenn (andrewfenn)]

I ran into this problem today on all distributions from Hardy up to the latest version of Ubuntu.

Please could you put a higher priority on fixing this as it is a part from the free desktop spec.

http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/

Could you also suggest an alternative to opening a file://somepath/index.html link in the default web browser as I know you will never fix this in older versions of Ubuntu that I have to support.

[Andika Triwidada (andika)]

I think I've got the same bug, but the problem was that selected-location-list will only properly show locations later *after* you close the dialog then reopen it.

[Andrew Fenn (andrewfenn)]

This bug is more then a problem with the menu editor program. Adding ".desktop" files to /usr/share/applications isn't working.

You can test this by creating the following file in /usr/share/applications/test.desktop

Insert the information below to the file..

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=Link
Name=Load Google
URL=www.google.com
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Utility;

It should then appear in the menu under "Applications -> Accessories" however it doesn't. desktop files with Type=Application however do appear in the menu as expected. You can test this by changing our test.desktop file like so..

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=Application
Name=Load Google
Exec=/etc/alternatives/x-www-browser www.google.com
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Utility;

The latter example is the only work around I can find however this is definitely broken in gnome-panel and has been for a long time now.

[Andrew Fenn (andrewfenn)]

I just tested this in Ubuntu 10.04 Beta and it's still the same issue (surprise surprise) as with every other version of ubuntu.

Trying the first example I gave before doesn't work. Trying the second example I gave before does work (the same as every other version of ubuntu).

I've attempted to look at fixing this issue myself however gnome panel source code documentation is a mess.

The README file tells me to look at a non-existant INSTALL file. The GnomePanel web page links to a lot of non-existent web pages and has no helpful information at all.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the new comments seem to have nothing to do with this bug which is about the clock applet geographic locations not about desktop entries

[Andrew Fenn (andrewfenn)]

Sorry must have have submitted to the wrong tab then kepted click on the link afterwards.