How to deal with .desktop renames (recommended for dbus activation) and users configs (launchers, mimetype handlers, ...)

[Sebastien Bacher]

Hey there,

To be dbus activable applications need to rename their .desktop [1], we
started seeing some applications doing that (e.g gedit renamed from
gedit.desktop to org.gnome.Gedit.desktop)

That's creating an issue for users/distributions, since the old .desktop
name is written in launchers' configuration and mimetype handlers
configurations.

Is there a recommended way to deal with the upgrade issue?

Should applications keep shipping a .desktop with the old name and
NoDisplay or something around those line? Should a new "alias" kind of
key be added that would allow the new .desktop to declare claiming other
names as well (would require updating parsers and it might make handling
of conflicts non trivial)

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Sebastien Bacher

[1]
http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/desktop-entry-spec-1.1.html#dbus