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I have two versions of a wine program. Curently, they are named the same. I would like to change their name form "Program name" to "Program name vesion.number".

These programs have their .desktop files in ~.local/share/applications/wine/Programs/. When I edit them and change the name attribute in the desktop file, nothing happens. (I remove and install leafpad all over to force some cache updating).

When I rename the "Program name.desktop" files to for example "Program nameAAA.desktop", the name in the dash changes. when I rename them back, it reverts to the original.

I can live with "Program nameAAA.desktop" but I still wonder why this happens? I suspect some cache somewhere.

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  • Do you have two desktop files with same Name attribute and same filename in the same directory? That can't be right.
    – Prasanth S
    Nov 13, 2013 at 4:02
  • No, they are actually in different directories (The software in question is Subtitle Workshop - it is a very old application but one that works. The old version is ~.local/share/applications/wine/Programs/URUSoft/Subtitle Workshop/ and a new version that some other people started to develop fairly recently is in ~.local/share/applications/wine/Programs/URUSoft/Subtitle Workshop/ - otherwise the desktop files are the same (but tey differ in exec accordingly) and they appear twice in Dash - as they should, as they open two different applications.
    – sup
    Nov 13, 2013 at 9:55
  • When two (or more) desktop files have the same filename, one of them chosen according to some priority rules. Eg: ~/.local/share/applications/ is preferred over /usr/share/applications/. This is useful if you want to modify some default desktop file. Just copy it to ~/.local/... and modify there. But, when two desktop files have different filenames, they're treated as different applications (irrespective of whether their names match) and hence get different entries in dash.
    – Prasanth S
    Nov 13, 2013 at 19:21
  • Yes, but I actaully get two entries in Dash - even though the .desktop file shave the same filename. They differ in they contents though. My problem is that when I edit either of these files to change its name property (and so change the name of the application as shown in the dash), it does not get registered by unity unless I also change the filename of the .desktop files. Which is weird and that is what I am asking about.
    – sup
    Nov 13, 2013 at 22:49

2 Answers 2

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You can use this old application to also edit the entries in your Dash:

https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/saucy/alacarte/

You can also get it by running this command in a terminal sudo apt-get install alacarte

I use this program even though it was meant for older releases of Ubuntu, and you had the old "Main Menu" with different categories. However, i thinks it's the easiest way to edit and add programs to your Ubuntu Dash! Just find your application, select it, press properties and then you can change the name, description and icon.

Please note that this program doesn't add an oldschool menu, but only includes the entries from the main menu into the Ubuntu Dash also, so don't get fooled by how it looks. Also, categories aren't used in the Ubuntu Dash either, so setting these has no effect.

Hope this is helpful!

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  • Ah, I have not used that in years! Well, first, it for some reason does not find the desktop files for my wine programs (there is a wine folder but the .desktop files somehow do not get included) and second, I actually found a way to change the name, I am just confused, why I need to rename a .desktop file in order to get the change registered.
    – sup
    Nov 12, 2013 at 20:16
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I concluded this is a bug in the end.

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