Lack of filtering/folders makes Wine applications difficult

[Scott Ritchie]

Binary package hint: unity-place-applications

The attached screenshot shows a Wine application that looks very poor in Unity. On Windows, applications create Start menu entries inside subfolders; as a consequence, their names sometimes imply that the user has knowledge of it.

By ignoring the subfolders in the Unity Applications place, we both create more applications in the general list and make them harder to figure out. For instance, when the system showing the screenshot loads Unity, A user can't easily associate "Benchmark", "Play", and "Revoke License" launchers as thing that apply to Grand Theft Auto. Things get much worse when multiple Windows applications are installed, as things may start to duplicate (eg several "Play" or "Readme" entries).

Possible fixes and limitations:
1) Follow the freedesktop spec and implement subfolders.
 - These would typically only be visible in the Wine use case, since it's what makes subfolders.
2) Create a Wine filter (in the list alongside games/accessories)
 - Helps isolate the Wine applications, but doesn't reveal the detail about which launcher is associated with what app
3) Extend Winetricks to apply metadata to the launchers of apps it installs to hide them in Unity
 - Useful because it lets us hide useless launchers (eg Uninstallers)
 - However we can't possibly create a winetricks verb for every Windows application, nor expect the user to always use winetricks (or a frontend to it, eg a future version of software center)
4) Provide a tool for users to manually rename/categorize their own application launchers
 - Requires significant work from user
 - Doesn't fix the initial problem

[Florian Boucault (fboucault)]

Subscribing ayatana-design to ask input from designers.