Relative paths in .desktop files

[Marty Jack]

On 04/11/2011 10:08 AM, PCMan wrote:
> My fault!
> Field code %k is the file path of the desktop entry file, not it's
> parent directory.
> So if you named the shell script after the desktop file, like
> "installer.desktop.sh", I think an Exec key like this should work.
> Exec=%k.sh
> This is a little bit tricky, but I think it can solve your problem.
> 
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 9:08 PM, Michael Thayer
> <michael.thayer at oracle.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 2011-04-09 at 15:34 +0800, PCMan wrote:
>>> An easy workaround might be like this:
>> [...]
>>> Exec=%k/installer.sh
>>>
>>> The field code %k will be expanded to the location of desktop entry file.
>>> This can solve your problem, in a more or less dirty way.
>> I tried this out (Nautilus 2.32.0 in Ubuntu 10.10) and unless I did
>> something wrong it failed to work.  Among the past threads I found
>> discussing this, this posting by Waldo Bastian in 2006 -
>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg/2006-August/006885.html -
>> sounds like he was happy with the idea of relative paths for icons:
>> [quote]
>>> Prefix with ./ sounds good:
>>>
>>> * If it starts with "/" it's an absolute path
>>> * If it starts with "./" is's a relative path
>>> * Everything else is a themed icon name
>> [end quote]
>> How would other (particularly GNOME) people today see this (for
>> executables too), and if favourably, where should I look for the code
>> which Nautilus uses to process desktop files?  I realise of course that
>> what I have in mind isn't quite the way .desktop files are used, but it
>> is sufficiently close that it seems to me silly to do something
>> separate.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> P.S. PCMan, I hope that you don't mind my CC-ing this back to the list.
>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 6:28 PM, Michael Thayer
>>> <michael.thayer at oracle.com> wrote:
>> [...]
>>>  I immediately ran up against the
>>>> problem that all paths in .desktop files have to be absolute, which
>>>> obviously isn't an option here.
>>>>
>>>> So of course, the question is what the prospects are of getting this
>>>> changed (I'm also open to suggestions about better ways).  And since we
>>>> are drifting towards the old AppFolder thing here anyway (which I know
>>>> has been raised every so often here in the past, but never seems to have
>>>> gone anywhere), what about some convention which would let one put
>>>> a .desktop file in a directory and have it be a "default" executable for
>>>> that directory?
>>>>
>>>> Just to be clear, since this is not the most important problem we have
>>>> to solve I won't be able to spend a lot of time on it, but if someone
>>>> can give me good enough pointers I might find a bit of time to write a
>>>> couple of patches on my own time out of personal interest.
>> --
>> ORACLE Deutschland B.V. & Co. KG   Michael Thayer
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I still have not seen a crisp definition of what you are proposing that a relative path specification mean.  The question "relative to what" has not been answered.  If you were to propose some specific text change that could be commented on, in sufficient detail that its implementation is unambiguous, that would help a lot.