Bug 432064

Summary:	Being able to create "switches" in the system settings to enable commands for .desktop files globally and being able to enable/disable them in the properties of those files
Product:	[I don't know] kde	Reporter:	Toadfield <toadfield>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Unassigned bugs mailing-list <unassigned-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	fella, nate, nicolas.fella
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Toadfield 2021-01-25 00:51:21 UTC

What I mean is,that somewhere in system settings you can create "switches".
For those "switches" you have to enter a command like "foo" or "foo=1".
And then you can turn that switch on or off.
If you turn it on,then it gets enabled for all .desktop files (means,if the you added the "switch" "foo" and enabled it,the .desktop file of for example firefox that normally is "firefox" as a command,then it's "foo firefox").
And you can change the order (so if you set that "foo" is higher than "foo2",then if will look like "foo foo2 firefox").
And in the properties of a .desktop file there is the tab "switches" or something like that,and you can see all the switches that you have (no matter if they are turned on or not globally) in their right priority order and you can turn them on or off for that application there.
It would also be cool to be able to open the "switch settings" for multiple .desktop files at once,so you can change that for example firefox,thundermail,gparted etc. don't use the switch "foo" (that is enabled globally) at once instead of going into the properties of each .desktop file manually.
That feature would be very cool and I would feel futuristic,cause right now I have to edit the commands for all the .desktop files I have manually and I can't use them globally and everything takes longer.
I know that I can enable env vars in .profile globally,but that's not a good way to do that,cause only env vars work and not commands like "foo" and you have to log out and in again everytime you wanna add a env var.
And if you say that I could use programs like Lutris or Gamehub,the problem with those are is that they aren't implemented in kde and cause of that they don't interact with the system that good (for example,you can't change switches in properties,and it doesn't work that good with krunner and programs don't get automatically and it isn't as fast as my idea etc.).

Comment 1 Toadfield 2021-01-25 16:41:53 UTC

Also,it would be cool of other programs could create there own switches.

Comment 2 Nicolas Fella 2021-01-25 16:50:06 UTC

What's the use case for editing all desktop files at once?

Comment 3 Toadfield 2021-01-25 22:22:59 UTC

(In reply to Nicolas Fella from comment #2)
> What's the use case for editing all desktop files at once?

Cause I use commands like "gamemoderun" for every program.
For now I have to open the properties and add that for every .desktop file manually.

Comment 4 Tobias Fella 2021-01-26 00:02:48 UTC

That sounds like something that would make significantly more sense just being a shell script

Comment 5 Nate Graham 2021-01-26 00:03:21 UTC

Thanks for listing all the potential alternatives. :)

You probably predicted this, but I think you should just use one of those alternatives. I very much doubt you'll find anyone willing to do this given the ultimate goal of avoiding using standard solutions to the problem of launching games in game mode. It would probably be more productive to work on making those things work better, rather than work around the issue/

This is a general thing I would say with a lot of your bug reports: the time might be better spent filing bug reports on the sources of the problems you're encountering, rather than requesting elaborate workarounds in KDE software. :)

Comment 6 Toadfield 2021-01-26 00:45:24 UTC

(In reply to Tobias Fella from comment #4)
> That sounds like something that would make significantly more sense just
> being a shell script

The problem is,that it would be cooler to do that in a gui.
And another problem is,that you can't enable/disable multiple commands for multiple .desktop files at once.
Also,if you make a script that automatically enables commands for all .desktop files globally,it would be annoying to disable that for one program and it would be faster if you could do that with switches in properties.

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #5)
> Thanks for listing all the potential alternatives. :)
> 
> You probably predicted this, but I think you should just use one of those
> alternatives.

If you mean Lutris etc.,those programs aren't grat,you have to add every program yourself and if you make a shortcut for the app menu,then you have to replace the normal one (or have two for every program) and select a theme.
That takes too much time

> I very much doubt you'll find anyone willing to do this given
> the ultimate goal of avoiding using standard solutions to the problem of
> launching games in game mode. It would probably be more productive to work
> on making those things work better, rather than work around the issue/

What do you mean by "problem of launching games in game mode"?
But that was only an example,but the feature request from me would also be useful for commands like "mangohud" or the env var "ENABLE_VKBASALT=1".

> This is a general thing I would say with a lot of your bug reports: the time
> might be better spent filing bug reports on the sources of the problems
> you're encountering, rather than requesting elaborate workarounds in KDE
> software. :)

I already did this for Lutris and gamehub,but they don't say anything after 5 months to my feature requests and it would be much better to have the feature request I mean here in kde instead of different programs.