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How do I prevent flatpak from hiding native app icons? (feddit.cl)

submitted 3 weeks ago by lambisio@feddit.cl to c/linuxquestions@lemmy.zip

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Basically $TITLE.

It happens sometimes that I need to install both the native and the flatpak version of a program, for compatibility or feature reasons. Say for example, native Gnucash has a crash in a specific dialog that I can skip with the flatpak version if that dialog crosses my workflow.

But this causes an issue. Many flatpak applications I have installed, like Norka, result in duplicating the icon / .desktop entry in the menu, which is annoying but survivable, But a few others, such as Luanti, seem to hide or replace the menu icon of the native program, leaving only one entry in the menu that always leads to the flatpak version. And this is quite breaking.

Is there any to prevent Flatpak from hiding or overwriting the native program icons, or at least prevent it from camouflaging itself? Basically I'm looking for how or where to achieve any of the following:

Make flatpak menu entries install separately, with names or descriptions guaranteed to not conflict with native program icons (say, "App - Flatpak version").
Make flatpak menu icons install into their own subdirectory in the menu.
Make flatpak not install desktop menu entries

Thanks in advance.

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[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Do your flatpak .desktop files go into a different directory to your regular ones?

[–] lambisio@feddit.cl 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It seems to depend on the package. Don't know enough of Flatpak to determine if there is some sort of system-wide setting to manage this.

Luanti, Stellarium, Norka, PPSSPP: they seem to place an entry in export/share/applications within each flatpak application dir, plus a copy (not a link) in /usr/share/applications, all formatted with the package name (eg.: "org.gnome.gnucash" or something). The native menu entry is hidden by the flatpak one, despite the native still existing in /usr/share/applications, so eg.: listing the entries in the menu or searching by name always shows one entry, and it's always the Flatpak one.
Apostrophe, Nheko: They place their desktop entry in the flatpak exports dir, then they remove or overwrite the native desktop entry from /usr/share/applications. Reinstalling the native application makes the file reappear, but not the desktop entry (which I guess gets subsumed into the case above).
Gnucash, Mousepad: they place their entry in the flatpak exports dir, and a copy (not a link) in /usr/share/applications. However, these entries seem to not conflict, as the menu always shows two entries when searching for the application.