No busy cursor when opening a file with a non-GTK app

[Ric Flomag]

Binary package hint: nautilus

A similar bug was filed 2 years ago for Openoffice (Bug #411035). I'm filing this new report as it seems to me that it does not affect openoffice or libreoffice in particular, but all non-GTK apps. Please feel free to mark this as duplicate and change the affected package in bug #411035 if needed.

This bug could be a good papercut for the oneiric cycle, as it affects a lot of people, has a rather important effect on the default desktop experience and should be quite easy to fix (though i have no idea on how to do that).

Opening a file from nautilus or from the unity file lens with a non-GTK application does not display a busy cursor while the application is starting. This behavior raises two problems:
 * The desktop experience is inconsistent, as GTK and non-GTK apps do not behave the same way.
 * Most importantly, on slow (i.e. netbooks) and middle-range computer, the application may take several seconds to start, without any feedback to the user. Most of the time, i have experienced that the user believes that the computer is not doing anything. He/she double-clicks again (and again). Then the file opens twice or more times. Frustrating.

Applications that I have tested: Libreoffice, VLC, Scribus, Audacity.

Steps to reproduce:
 * Open a libreoffice file from nautilus or the Unity file lens.
 * or... open any other file with a non-GTK app (VLC / .avi, Scribus / .sla, Audacity / .mp3 etc.)

Observed : nothing, until the application starts
Expected: a busy mouse cursor is displayed until the application starts

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: nautilus 1:2.32.2.1-0ubuntu13
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Jun 16 11:29:09 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release i386 (20101007)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=es_DO:fr:en
 LANG=es_DO.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: nautilus
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-04-30 (46 days ago)

[Brendan Donegan (brendan-donegan)]

Confirmed this is still a bug at least in Natty - can't quite believe it still hasn't been addressed. I thought there would be an upstream bug, but couldn't find one. Will raise one when I get a chance.

[Ric Flomag (ricflomag)]

Removing reference to bug #862662 as a duplicate: they are similar but different bug.