Launchers not being saved on restart.

[HighValueWarrior]

Hello, When adding launchers they are listed but upon restart they are not saved to .config/cairo-dock/current_theme/launchers/

Arch linux, KDE. Same behaviour mulitiple machines.

[dkondor]

Hi,

thank you for reporting! What can happen if Cairo-Dock cannot find a .desktop file of a launcher on startup, it will delete the launcher. However, this should not happen if you're able to create the launcher, since that usually requires identifying a valid .desktop file. So there seems to be some issue with either identifying the correct .desktop file or with saving or loading the launcher.

Would you be able to test the following?

• When you create the launcher, is it added under .config/cairo-dock/current_theme/launchers/? (this should happen immediately)
• When you exit Cairo-Dock, is the launcher still there?
• Whenever the launcher is there, does it contain a line with Origin= and if yes, is the value correspond to a .desktop file that actually exists?

Also, which version of Cairo-Dock are you using? (I had a bug with creating / reading launchers before, but that was in a development version) If it's the beta, do you know if this was this working before?

Does this happen for any app or only some specific type (e.g. installed from source, installed only for one user, installed with Flatpak or Snap, etc.)?

[HighValueWarrior]

When you create the launcher, is it added under .config/cairo-dock/current_theme/launchers/? (this should happen immediately)     

Yes

When you exit Cairo-Dock, is the launcher still there?

Only if the original desktop link is still on desktop - otherwise deleted on restart of cairo dock

Whenever the launcher is there, does it contain a line with Origin= and if yes, is the value correspond to a .desktop file that actually exists? Yes, however if you delete the desktop file, obviously that link will not be there.

Also, which version of Cairo-Dock are you using? (I had a bug with creating / reading launchers before, but that was in a development version) If it's the beta, do you know if this was this working before? Latest version

Does this happen for any app or only some specific type (e.g. installed from source, installed only for one user, installed with Flatpak or Snap, etc.)?
All my apps are from arch repos or aur.

Looking at the config file, it would appear that it is looking for the links on the desktop. I create the links and then drag them to the dock, as this is the only way I can add apps quickly. This seems counter intuitive. If I have a link on the desktop why would I need a dock ??

[dkondor]

Hi,

thanks for explaining, now I understand the problem. The main issue is that to have a launcher (unless you create it as a "custom launcher"), you need a .desktop file somewhere, so if you delete it, the launcher will typically not work (and is removed). Previously, if you deleted a .desktop file, but it was still present somewhere on the system, Cairo-Dock would often be able to find it, but this functionality was disabled in a recent refactor. I'll look into re-enabling this, which would solve your problem.

On the other hand, there are alternative ways for adding launchers which you might find even more comfortable :)

• Enable the "Application menu" plugin / add-on, and drag the apps to the dock directly from there (without putting them on the desktop first). If you normally don't need the menu, you can disable it after you added all launchers you need.
• Run an app (with any other way, e.g. by starting it from the menu or the command line), right click on its icon, point to its name, and select the "Make it a launcher" option from there (see e.g. here). This method might fail for some apps that are installed in a nonstandard way, but should work in general.

I hope these work while the original issue is resolved.

[dkondor]

I've created #43 that should fix this. It would be great if you could test. Also, let me know if you have any issues with the alternate methods for adding launchers.

[HighValueWarrior]

Daniel, unfortunatly the fix did not work. Desktop links once deleted still disappear from the dock.

I was always bummed about not being able to drag and drop as before in X11. Fortunately the applications menu method works great.

[dkondor]

Thank you for testing, that's weird -- I'll do more tests then to try to reproduce your issue again. I'm aware of issues with drag and drop, but this will probably take longer to fix (although I would like to do so before the next stable release)

[dkondor]

Hi, unfortunately, I still cannot reproduce this after applying my proposed fix (that I've now merged to the main branch). If you still experience this problem, it would be great if you could provide a bit more detailed test case (example of an app for which this happens, original location of its .desktop file, etc.). Thank you!

[HighValueWarrior]

Daniel after latest update, everything seems good. Followed my previous methodology and launchers did not dissappear. Thanks for the quick fixes !

[dkondor]

Great, thanks for testing!