Dash opens desktop files in gedit instead of running them

[Colin Law]

To replicate, place a .desktop file in Desktop folder. Open the Dash and enter start of filename. The Dash shows the file under Files and Folders. Select the file and it is opened in gedit instead of being run.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Aditya V (kroq-gar78)]

This also affects me on Ubuntu 12.04 Beta 2 w/ Unity 3D. Also, setting the file's executable bit to true doesn't do the trick for Unity. It still tries to open it through gedit (for me).

[Aditya V (kroq-gar78)]

Also, is it possible that it's actually the files' lens's problem and not Unity's?

[Albert Astals Cid (aacid)]

Adding unity-lens-files here since after having a look at the unity-2d code all i see is that we just call activate on the item so it's up to the lens to decide what to do with it

OTOH i think this is more a wish than a bug

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

With regard to whether this is a wish or a bug I assumed that the action in the dash would be the same as the default open action for a file. Since the default action for a .desktop file is to run it then logically this is what should happen.

[Bilal Akhtar (bilalakhtar)]

Is the desktop file set to execute (+x permission)? The file lens uses xdg-open and it should execute the desktop file if the execute permission is set.

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

Yes the .desktop file has execute permission, and when I double click it (or right click open) on the desktop it runs. However if, in a terminal, I do
xdg-open <name>.desktop
it opens in gedit.
I think we are getting to the crux of the problem.

[Aditya V (kroq-gar78)]

So it's an xdg-open problem then?

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

Apparently so. See bug #378783. It does not seem correct to mark this as a dup of that though as the symptom is different. I have added a comment to that bug.

[Julian Stecklina (js-alien8)]

Still happens to me using xdg-open 1.1.0 rc1 on Fedora 18. Is there a straight forward way to debug this?

[Alex Baggott (alex-baggott)]

As part of the big bug review for 16.04 LTS, I have tested this on 15.10 and the bug is still there.