Binary name in the desktop file

[Kevin Krammer]

On Thursday, 2013-12-26, 10:56:11, Jerome Leclanche wrote:
> I'd really like to be able to get the binary name from desktop files
> (eg a way to "start without any argument"). Current implementations
> rely on getting the first word of the Exec key OR replace %f etc by
> nothing, but that fails for things such as these:
> 
> Exec=env WINEPREFIX="/home/adys/.local/share/wineprefixes/default"
> wine start /ProgIDOpen chm.file %f

What do you mean when you say "fails"?
That the command won't launch if %f is replaced by nothing or that taking the 
first string fails to see that the launched program is /usr/bin/env?

> 1. Add an Environment key to desktop files, like systemd's service
> files. This would be neat and cleaner for such programs. That exec key
> would trip up launchers that parse the command line in addition to the
> name. Annoying! But it doesn't really fix my issue.
> 
> 2. Potential solution #1: Add an ExecNoArgs (or similarly named) key.
> If not found, it would be assumed to be the same as the Exec key with
> %f/%F/%u/%U replaced by nothing. Clean, backwards-compatible, easy to
> implement.
> 
> 3. Potential solution #2: Add a Binary key and add a %b token for the
> Exec key so that you can do something like
> Binary=/usr/bin/foo
> Exec=%b --files=%F
> 
> Not backwards compatible but more potential. On the other hand, this
> could be inappropriately used for things such as wine (where Binary
> would be /usr/bin/wine but should never be executed without args)...

Not backward compatible is a no-go IMHO. It would take years before software 
vendors could use the new format.

Cheers,
Kevin
-- 
Kevin Krammer, KDE developer, xdg-utils developer
KDE user support, developer mentoring
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