Ubuntu Dock shows empty space for apps lacking a .desktop file

[Daniel Jozsef]

Problem:
On Ubuntu Desktop 20.04, everything latest, I have run into the inconvenience that when I'm running a GUI program without a freedesktop .desktop launcher, the Ubuntu Dock shows it as an empty space (since it has no icon of its own).

Expected behavior:
I would expect a generic placeholder / fallback icon to be shown for such applications, as an empty space at the bottom of the Dock is hard to find, and makes navigating applications frustrating. (In older versions of Ubuntu, a generic application icon was shown in such cases.)

Steps to reproduce:
1. Open terminal
2. Run "xclock" from the terminal
3. Observe the blank space on Ubuntu Dock

Some relevant package versions:
gnome-shell: 3.36.3-1ubuntu1~20.04.2
gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock: 68ubuntu1~20.04.1
yaru-theme-icon: 20.04.7

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Yeah this ideally should not happen. X11 apps can and do provide icons programmatically at runtime so those should be used where available. As well as some kind of fallback.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

See also https://github.com/micheleg/dash-to-dock/issues/1278

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

And https://github.com/micheleg/dash-to-dock/issues/1269

[Gary (g-ubuntuone-e)]

Replicated in our systems as well.