SUMMARY Desktop files (*.desktop) have three properties: Name, Description (GenericName) and Comment. If the Description is missing, a description won't be shown when the user hovers over the app's icon in the task manager. Welcome Center's desktop file doesn't have a description. So a description could be added, something like "Introduction to KDE Plasma".
Welcome Center doesn't have a generic function. It's a specific and highly integrated part of KDE Plasma. As an example of the opposite, for instance, Dolphin is a "File Manager" and Elisa is a "Music Player". These tend to be default-able applications for handling different scenarios. I think the lack of GenericName is appropriate, so I'm marking as RESOLVED INTENTIONAL.
That's accurate, yes. If Task Manager doesn't show any subtitle unless GenericName is present, that's a Task Manager bug, because the app *does* set Description appropriately. I can confirm it, FWIW. Can you open a new bug report for this? Thanks!
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #2) > If Task Manager doesn't show any subtitle unless GenericName is present, > that's a Task Manager bug, because the app *does* set Description > appropriately. I'm not sure what you mean here. When the description isn't set, there won't be anything shown as a subtitle. I think that's correct behaviour. However, when the GenericName and Name are the *same*, the subtitle isn't shown, even though it is set by the desktop file. So I'll file a bug report for that.
(In reply to Oliver Beard from comment #1) > Welcome Center doesn't have a generic function. It's a specific and highly > integrated part of KDE Plasma. I understand what you mean. I previously reported the same issue to Emoji Selector, System Monitor, and Menu Editor. Should I mark them as RESOLVED INTENTIONAL as well?
(In reply to hottog from comment #4) > I understand what you mean. I previously reported the same issue to Emoji > Selector, System Monitor, and Menu Editor. Should I mark them as RESOLVED > INTENTIONAL as well? I would say so, yes. In general I think the characterisation of GenericName as a description is not correct (or at least, confusing). This probably originates from KMenuEdit, which refers to GenericName as "Description". It seems to me the comment is intended more as a description. Referring to https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/recognized-keys.html we see: Name, Specific name of the application, for example "Mozilla". GenericName, Generic name of the application, for example "Web Browser". So the same applies here as to 504405, 504404 and 504402. 504396, 504397, 504398 and 504400 are different in that these .desktop files have the same GenericName as Name. It would seem proper to me that GenericName would be dropped altogether. 504409 (Spectacle) and 504408 (kwalletmanager) has GenericName the same as the comment, which is strange. I would suggest GenericName is dropped and comment improved. Before taking any action, Nate — what do you think?
I think GenericName and Comment have a place. GenericName is just that (what is the main purpose of the program). Comment is a longer description of what the user can use the application for (listen to music, view and manage files, create videos etc.) But their naming is a little confusing. Kickoff uses the Comment for its subtitles. But when you go into Kickoff's settings the user-facing naming scheme is Description for it. Furthermore, a lot of KDE and third-party apps don't use these properties the same way. Some leave it empty, some just fill it in with the app name, or write a long description for "Description" and a short one for "Comment". The point is that developers don't know what exactly these properties should be so they just come up with their own idea of it.
Actually probably all three should be set, since indeed they serve different purposes: - name: brand name - generic name: that type of app it is, or its general purpose - comment: short imperative sentence describing what you can do with it This will result in the name and generic name being identical for apps where the brand name is already fairly generic (e..g. System Settings, System Monitor). It wouldn't be idea if both strings ever got displayed at the same time, though we could call that a client bug. However.... what should the client do instead? Switch to the comment if the generic name is identical to the name? This feels like it needs a bit more discussion. I'll create an Issue for it.
Actually it looks like we handle this just fine; Kickoff shows the Comment instead of the GenericName, while Task Manager shows no caption at all. Task Manager should probably be changed to use the Task Manager's behavior.
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-welcome/-/merge_requests/212
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #8) > Actually it looks like we handle this just fine; Kickoff shows the Comment > instead of the GenericName, while Task Manager shows no caption at all. Task > Manager should probably be changed to use the Task Manager's behavior. Task Manager should probably show the comment as a subtitle, because other applets' tooltips do that (Kickoff, Show Desktop, etc.). I should be careful and say absolutely not in the tooltip for an application with open windows, as that is for files, tab name, etc.
Git commit f0a0fbf5959767fadce13759dc75ea8630a6a3d2 by Nate Graham. Committed on 21/05/2025 at 19:21. Pushed by ngraham into branch 'master'. Set the GenericName key This should always be set. See discussion in the bug report for more information. FIXED-IN: 6.5.0 M +1 -0 org.kde.plasma-welcome.desktop https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-welcome/-/commit/f0a0fbf5959767fadce13759dc75ea8630a6a3d2