Bugzilla Bug 123655

It looks like the vmware-workstation ebuild patches vmware-config.pl to not
install .desktop files or MIME handlers, and instead generates one itself, but
this is bad for several reasons:

1. The .desktop file that gets generated is missing relevant MIME types
2. No .desktop gets installed for vmware player, even though the ebuilds
conflict.
3. No MIME handlers get installed, which means that the various vm files (.vmx,
.vmdb, etc) aren't using the right icons.
4. The launcher gets filed under "other" rather than "system tools", where
every vmware user from another distribution would expect it.
5. Probably other badness.

I can understand the reasoning behind this, but the existing solution causes
more harm than good.

This is one of those things that we know about, but is such low priority that
we haven't really looked at fixing it.  I'll get on this sometime after my
vacation, which starts tomorrow, but it will probably be very low on my TODO
list.

I wouldn't mind us actually using the vmware-supplied desktop/mime information.
 I think the reasoning back when we patched it out was to keep us from having
two installed, and it was easier to stick with ours than change to theirs,
especially as not all versions of vmware-workstation provide desktop/mime info.

Created an attachment (id=93812) [edit]
make_desktop_entry patch

vmware-workstation-4.5.3.19414-r4 and vmware-workstation-5.5.1.19175-r4 no
longer install a desktop file pointing to the installed icon. This patch fixes
that.

OK.  I fixed that, though it doesn't really cover the same material as this
particular bug report.

OK.  At least now the icon shows up in the right place.  The rest really need
to wait for the replacement for vmware-config.pl to come.

Ok, could someone please verify if this bug still exists?  The workstation-6
ebuild appears to be giving me a good vmware-workstation and vmware-player
desktop file, and their entries are appearing under System Tools in Gnome.  The
mime-types are present in /usr/share/mime/packages/, and the only thing
seemingly missing is the desktop entry not having the MIME-Type specified. 
This is probably due to a limitation in the little wrapper used to create such
desktop entries.  Can we close this, or is still worth keeping open?

Well, #1 and #3 are still valid, but #2 and #4 have been fixed.

I thought the Mime handlers were installed?  I agree there's no icons, but I'm
not certain how they come to get those.  Is it through the .desktop file, or
from the .xml mime files in /usr/share/mime?

(In reply to comment #7)
> I thought the Mime handlers were installed?  

MIME *descriptions* are installed in
/usr/share/mime/packages/vmware-workstation.xml, but the .desktop files don't
specify that Workstation is capable of opening these MIME types.

> I agree there's no icons, but I'm
> not certain how they come to get those.  Is it through the .desktop file, or
> from the .xml mime files in /usr/share/mime?

No, the icons are in /opt/vmware/workstation/lib/share/icons and all that is
needed are files with the right names (they exist there, in mimetypes dirs),
but desktop environments don't look at this location. There are two possible
fixes I can see:
(1) Add this directory to XDG_DATA_DIRS.
(2) Symlink or move all files in this directory (exept index.theme) into
/usr/share/icons at install time. This sounds simpler to me.


Additionally, another problem with the desktop files is that the icons look
like crap. It's the same problem upstream has (see explanation here
http://www.chipx86.com/blog/?p=246). The fix is to not use full path to
single-resolution icon in .desktop files, as this ebuild does, but use only
symbolic "vmware-workstation" name for the icon. This, of course, only works if
the icon can be found, which too would be solved by (1) or (2) above.

Created an attachment (id=147618) [edit]
patch to fix MIME and icons issues

This patch fixes the problems from my previous comment. I don't know if any
parts should be moved to vmware.eclass (probably yes, but they depend on
.desktop files handling, which is commented out there).

Thanks Vaclav!

I've applied the patch to the vmware overlay, and will leave it there for
testing for a week or two.  I'll also try to integrate it into the
vmware.eclass if I can.  If you haven't seen it move into the tree in the next
month or so, do please give me a poke and I'll get on it...  5:)

Please try the latest versions of vmware-workstation in the tree.  If you're
still having issues, please reopen this bug.