Kate does not show in applications

[Václav Pavlík]

There are several issues with 'Kate' on my clean install of Ubuntu 20.04

When I installed Kate from Snap, it could not recognize my sessions (which I copied from my old disk to ~/.local/share/kate/sessions and I also moved the .desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications) but besides that, the application ran as normal. And it was also in the applications dash (important for later).

I thought it was missing some dependencies, so I checked it in Synaptics package manager. But 'kate' appeared uninstalled. I selected it for installation and then I could see two instances in the applications! One of them could see my sessions, the other one no. So I uninstalled it again from both Synaptics and from Snap. And installed it again only with Synaptics.

Now, Kate is working with my sessions but
- it does NOT appear in the applications dash although it had previously two instances there (yes, I have the proper WMClass set up, and I have tried 'sudo update-desktop-database' and I have tried to move the application entry to /usr/share/applications)
- it can be executed from terminal and also from Alt-F2 as 'kate'
- it cannot be, however, added to favorites
- its icon in the dash cannot be clicked by the middle mouse button to open a new instance
- every new instance started with either a new terminal or Alt-F2 appears as a new icon in dash, instead of adding a dot, as e.g. Firefox does or even Kate did on 16.04
- although it is installed in Synaptics, it does not appear as installed in Snap

See the attached screenshots.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: kate 4:19.12.3-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-37.41-generic 5.4.41
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-37-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.3
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Jun 21 14:51:30 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-06-19 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200423)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=cs_CZ.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: kate
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Václav Pavlík (pavl-va)]

So it seems that the org.kde.kate.desktop file was wrong, the [Desktop Entry] block was generated at the end of the file instead at the top.

[Václav Pavlík (pavl-va)]

I have found how to reproduce the bug! PLEASE, REPAIR IT.

1) file ~/.local/share/applications/org.kde.kate.desktop contains blocks in the following order and everything works as it should (Kate is searchable in the dash and can be pinned to the dash bar):

[Desktop Entry]
...
[Desktop Action Session ...]
...

2) open Kate, new session

3) click menubar Session > Save session (choose name, save)

4) the file ~/.local/share/applications/org.kde.kate.desktop rewrites itself (as it should) but contains blocks in a wrong order!

[Desktop Action Session ...]
...
[Desktop Action Session ...]
...

[Desktop Entry]
...

5) suddenly, kate icon moves to the bottom on the dash bar, when clicked by the right mouse button, you can no longer pin it nor find it among the dash applications

6) you have to manually open ~/.local/share/applications/org.kde.kate.desktop and move the [Desktop Entry] block to the beginning of the file

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Adrianna Pińska (confluence)]

I believe that this is the upstream issue: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=415948