Startup applications should hint about the possibility to drag applications from the dash

[TomasHnyk]

How to reproduce:
1. Run gnome-session-properties (or alternatively via session indicator run "Startup applications..."
2. Add Tomboy (via the add button)

What happens:
Well, Tomboy is added and runs the next logon. But the icon is not visible nor is it possible to add it manually.

What should happen:
Well, I would like to see an icon next to Tomboy, as I see for example for System load applet

There are two solutions: one is to use gtk software selector: bug 140918

Other is to somehow hint the user that she can drag and drop icons from unity

See attached screenshot for how it looks like (applications with icons were added in 11.04 and earlier I think)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: gnome-session-bin 3.2.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-13.22-generic 3.0.6
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-13-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Nov 26 18:44:44 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
SourcePackage: gnome-session
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, where do you suggest it would take the icon to use information from in those cases?

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

Look up for a .desktop file corresponding to the autolaunched command?

If I start empathy on startup, the program would look for empathy.desktop ( on my system /usr/share/applications/empathy.desktop ), which hopefully specifies an icon - and indded it does
[Desktop Entry]
blabla
Exec=empathy
Icon=empathy
blabla

I suppose that .desktop file of a command has usually name command.desktop (as in this case empathy.desktop). This code must already be in use somewhere, Unity uses desktop files for listing applications in the dash afaik and so does Nautilus (for suggestions of recommendedprograms to open a file).

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Interesting suggestion but that would lead to random behaviour (sometimes it work, sometimes it doesn't), consistency is better than magic that happens to work only sometimes (random behaviour leads to confused users).

What we recommend to do is to dnd softwares from the unity dash to the session dialog, that will add the desktop files will all the infos including a nice icon and a name

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

>Interesting suggestion but that would lead to random behaviour (sometimes it work, sometimes it doesn't), consistency is better than magic that happens to work only sometimes (random behaviour leads to confused users).

Please note that I (and probably everyone who added startup applications in the past and thus with icons) is in this state of incosistency (look at the screenshot again). Moreover, I do not think it would create much inconsistency:
1) If you add an app that has an icon in unity and so on, if it does not appear, it should be filed as a bug.
2) If you add an app that does not have an icon but should, well, it is a bug once more
3) If you add something else (ie. custom script), you are probably experienced enough to know there is no icon for it. Moreover, there is the generic icon (on my screenshot, the one next to liferea and Parcellite) for this case, so not really an inconsistency there.

If you really strive for consistency, remove the icons altogether.

>What we recommend to do is to dnd softwares from the unity dash to the session dialog, that will add the desktop files will all the infos including a nice icon and a name
Frankly, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Dragging from the launcher to the startup applications dialog does not work if you are talking about that (nor from the dash).

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

> 1) If you add an app that has an icon in unity and so on, if it does not appear, it should be filed as a bug.

the issue is that "the .desktop name should match the command name" is something which is in practice often false and not a documented standard but an hack, we aim at better quality and avoid hacks nowadays.

> Dragging from the launcher to the startup applications dialog does not work if you are talking about that (nor from the dash).

dragging from the launcher doesn't work but dragging from the dash or the application lens should work, i.e click on the ubuntu logo in the launcher to open the dash, type "gedit" (for example), dnd the gedit icon to the gnome-session-properties dialog, it should be added with a proper name or icon. You can do the same from the application lens without having to type anything in the dash

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Renaming the bug I think one change that would improve the logic is to use the same selector you get in nautilus when you right click and select "open with", that dialog browses .desktop files and it's usually what you want.

We should also put some text in the session properties list background to indicate that you can drag and drop for the unity dash

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

Oh, now i get dnd means drag and drop:-).

Anyway, dnd works, must have been my poor mouse skills that it did work for the first time.

Yeah, some indication that you can dnd from the dash would be nice, I have no idea that that was possible. Now I have nice icons.

And yes, the selector would be what I want. However, the ability to edit startup applications by hand should be preserved (i.e. for running thigs without .desktop file) - the selector currently lacks it.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

> Oh, now i get dnd means drag and drop:-).

Sorry about that confusion ;-)

> However, the ability to edit startup applications by hand should be preserved (i.e. for running thigs without .desktop file) - the selector currently lacks it.

Right, that's a known issue with the current version of that code

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

I changed the description based on our discussion. Is this ubuntu specific or should it be filed upstream?

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

I opened bug 897323 about dragging from the launcher. If designed team ruled that this is undesirable, feel free to close that bug.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The "drag and drop from the dash" is Ubuntu specific but upstream could probably have a text hinting to do the gnome-shell equivalent (or to do it from nautilus), the request to make the "add" button use the gtk selector would be a valid upstream one to open on bugzilla.gnome.org

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

Hm, turns out this has been reported ages ago(and upstream too): bug 140918

I will not duplicate this bug and just update it so that it is about hinting about the launcher. That seems to be easy, should not it be tagged bitesize or something? Should not ayatana-design be added to this bug - it might require some design thinking.