[tor-bugs] #13375 [Tor Browser]: Tor Browser Script can't be launched from the Linux desktop

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#13375: Tor Browser Script can't be launched from the Linux desktop
-------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
     Reporter:  lunar    |      Owner:  mikeperry
         Type:           |     Status:  needs_review
  enhancement            |  Milestone:
     Priority:  normal   |    Version:
    Component:  Tor      |   Keywords:  tbb-usability, tbb-helpdesk-
  Browser                |  frequent, tbb-usability-stoppoint-app,
   Resolution:           |  MikePerry201503, tbb-4.5-alpha,
Actual Points:           |  TorBrowserTeam201503R
       Points:           |  Parent ID:
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Comment (by mikeperry):

 I thought of a couple of bad corner cases:

 1. Because it is a symbolic link, the Nautilus file manager doesn't
 properly handle dragging the .desktop file around between directories or
 to the Desktop. It actually moves the relative symbolic link without
 updating it, causing it to become a broken link.

 2. Users who update TBB from a version without this .desktop file won't
 get it in their TBB directory after update. It's a shame they have to miss
 out on this usability improvement. They may not ever know it even exists.

 Both of these make me think it is better to actually have start-tor-
 browser.desktop be a full-fledged file, and a copy of the version in
 Browser/start-tor-browser.desktop. The start-tor-browser script can simply
 overwrite (or create) the ../start-tor-browser.desktop file as a proper
 file upon each invocation. That way, if we need to update it via the
 updater, the .desktop file will actually get re-written on the next
 invocation. Since we're modifying it anyway, this doesn't seem that much
 crazier than what we're already doing here, and seems strictly better.

 I just pushed a fixup commit to that branch to fix this (see
 https://gitweb.torproject.org/user/mikeperry/tor-browser-
 bundle.git/commit/?h=bug13375&id=a2260918d993aaa3ea14334a59bd634711bde8dc).
 While I was at it, I made it possible to run start-tor-browser.desktop
 directly from the Browser/ subdirectory in the file manager, in case users
 end up wandering in their file browser.

 I think this also means that we can omit start-tor-browser.desktop from
 the forced full updates, so my tor-browser.git branch is no longer
 relevant (though independently, I think it is good to force a full update
 of start-tor-browser, because it is probably common for people to tweak
 that file, and that shouldn't cause incrementals to fail for them).

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13375#comment:25>
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