Flatpak suggestions

[stavros.azinas@…]

Not really a bug, but more of a GUI issue/suggestion, the app icon doesn't appear when you install the flatpack version, nor it "respects" dark mode on Ubuntu

OpenGL version: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 535.171.04
OpenGL renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090/PCIe/SSE2
OpenGL vendor: NVIDIA Corporation

Python: 3.11.4
Locale: en_US.UTF-8
Qt version: PyQt6 6.6.1, Qt 6.6.1
Qt runtime version: 6.6.3
Qt platform: xcb

XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
DESKTOP_SESSION=ubuntu
XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=ubuntu
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=ubuntu:GNOME
DISPLAY=:0
Manufacturer: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
Model: MS-7D67
OS: Freedesktop SDK 23.08 Flatpak runtime
Architecture: 64bit ELF
Virtual Machine: detection failed
CPU: 32 AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16-Core Processor
Cache Size: 1024 KB
Memory:
	               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
	Mem:           124Gi       110Gi        11Gi       194Mi       4.4Gi        14Gi
	Swap:            9Gi       4.7Gi       5.3Gi

Graphics:
	01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation AD102 [GeForce RTX 4090] [10de:2684] (rev a1)	
	Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device [10de:16f3]	
	Kernel driver in use: nvidia

[Greg Couch]

For now, if you open the flatpak, then the icon appears on the toolbar and you can right-click to "Add to Favorites", i.e., keep it permanently on the toolbar. This technique also works for the deb package installations. And in the latter, you can add a symbolic link to /usr/share/applications/UCSF-ChimeraX-1.7.1.desktop in your ~/Desktop directory to get the icon on your desktop.

I was expecting a ~/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/applications/UCSF-ChimeraX.desktop file that could be linked to, but it's not there, so I will investigate.

As for supporting dark mode, I've opened a separate ticket for that, #15342.

[Greg Couch]

Got the desktop file name wrong. For a "flatpak install --user", the desktop file is in ~/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/applications/edu.ucsf.rbvi.ChimeraX.desktop. And for a system install, the file is /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications/edu.ucsf.rbvi.ChimeraX.desktop. Use ChimeraX-daily.desktop for daily releases.

So to get an icon on your desktop, put a symbolic link to the desktop file in your ~/Desktop directory. The fact that it is not easy to do that with the GUI, is a bug in the desktop environment, not ChimeraX.