Xfce Forum

John Jason Jordan

Member

Registered: 2019-11-22

Posts: 76

File managers do not display the actual name of .desktop files

Xubuntu 18.04, up to date.

After doing a dist-upgrade from 16.04 my menus have become a mess. Part of the problem is that there are multiple .desktop files for many applications in both usr/share/applications and ~/local/share/applications. I used to use Thunar (still installed), but now I use PCManFM, and I also have Midnight Commander installed, although I can't figure out how to navigate to /usr/share/applications with Midnight Commander, so I gave up on it. The other two display the name of the application rather than the actual name of the .desktop file, which I find maddening. I've looked everywhere for some way to get them to display the files by their actual filename, but I've come up empty.

Are there any other GUI file managers that have not gone Redmond-esque in their displays? Is there any way to make Thunar or PCManFM tell me what I need to know? Any suggestions welcome!

John Jason Jordan

Member

Registered: 2019-11-22

Posts: 76

Re: File managers do not display the actual name of .desktop files

I finally stumbled upon a solution. If you launch Thunar as root (that is, with sudo), it will display the contents of the /usr/share/applications folder by their filenames rather than by the application name.

kreemoweet

Member

Registered: 2019-12-01

Posts: 7

Re: File managers do not display the actual name of .desktop files

Also using Xubuntu 18.04 here, but even a root Thunar does not show filenames in /usr/share/applications. It does in ~/local/share/applications as long
as the file does not have the executable bit set (which none of them do). This is terrible behavior by Thunar. I have to use ls command in terminal to see actual filenames.

John Jason Jordan

Member

Registered: 2019-11-22

Posts: 76

Re: File managers do not display the actual name of .desktop files

Also using Xubuntu 18.04 here, but even a root Thunar does not show filenames in /usr/share/applications. It does in ~/local/share/applications as long
as the file does not have the executable bit set (which none of them do). This is terrible behavior by Thunar. I have to use ls command in terminal to see actual filenames.

Thunar did display the files by their filenames the first time I used it, but then I had to reboot, and when I launched Thunar as root again it listed them by their application name. I have no idea why. All the other GUI file managers list them by their application names as well. I was constantly having to right-click on a file and select Properties to find the filename. Makes it difficult to edit a .desktop file when you have to take extra steps to find its name.