Hello all, I started looking today in more depth at the MIME type registration process for applications providing *.desktop files, dh_desktop, and what Lintian is currently doing (as part of addressing #488832).
Current situation: Lintian warns of packages that contain desktop files in the debian/* directory of the source package and depend on debhelper but don't call dh_desktop in debian/rules. Packages that don't use debhelper don't receive any checks. What I've implemented: In resolving #488832, I plan on removing that check and instead checking whether packages that ship *.desktop files containing MimeType keys call update-desktop-database in their postinst. This is a more direct check that verifies the actions of dh_desktop and will also catch packages that don't use debhelper or that don't have a conventional debian/rules file (such as CDBS packages). I think that's an improvement. However, in investigating further, I'd like some advice. My questions: 1. The update-desktop-database program used to be documented in the desktop entry spec in version 0.9.5 and was removed in 0.9.6 (the current version is 1.0). Should I draw some conclusion from that? Is this program and cache likely to go away? Is it still really used? (It also seems odd that a cache regenerated from installed files is written to /usr/share rather than in /var.) 2. Should Lintian be continuing to recommend that people installing *.desktop files call dh_desktop just in case, even if there are no MimeType entries in the *.desktop files? I've been leaning that way in the past, but given how long it's been since dh_desktop was added and given that it still doesn't do anything else, I wonder if this isn't just noise. I'm currently leaning towards removing the check for dh_desktop in favor of only checking for update-desktop-database when there are *.desktop files with MimeInfo unless someone tells me that's a bad idea. 3. Does the Shared MIME-info Database or the update-mime-info program have anything to do with this? I think I've convinced myself that they don't, but I'd love confirmation from someone who works more intensely in the desktop environment world than I. Thanks in advance! -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org