Bug#1099579: gnome-shell: re-evaluate initial apps to show in the Dash for trixie

[Simon McVittie]

Package: gnome-shell
Version: 48~rc-1
Severity: important
Tags: trixie, sid
Control: affects -1 + gnome gnome-core
X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-gtk-gnome at lists.debian.org

We have a GSettings override to set Debian-appropriate apps to appear in
the Dash in new installations, which means that upstream changes to the
list of apps in the Dash are not reflected in Debian.

Currently in Debian we have:

> favorite-apps=[
> 'firefox-esr.desktop',
> 'org.gnome.Evolution.desktop',
> 'rhythmbox.desktop',
> 'libreoffice-writer.desktop',
> 'org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop',
> 'org.gnome.Software.desktop',
> 'yelp.desktop'
> ]
— debian/gnome-shell.gsettings-override

overriding upstream's:

> org.gnome.Epiphany.desktop
> org.gnome.Calendar.desktop
> gnome.Nautilus.desktop
> org.gnome.Software.desktop
> org.gnome.TextEditor.desktop
> org.gnome.Calculator.desktop
— data/default-apps/dash.txt

Epiphany → Firefox seems a reasonable swap. I believe Fedora does the same.
Upstream used to have Firefox in this position here too.

Do we want Calendar instead of Evolution? Upstream replaced Evolution with
Geary and Calendar in 2019 (commit d0507ec6 "Update default favorite apps
list", https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/merge_requests/907) and
then removed Geary in 2021 (80e22740 "schemas: Define default app grid
arrangement", https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/1700).

We should probably remove Rhythmbox? We dropped it from the gnome
metapackage. Upstream replaced it with gnome-music in 2019
(commit d0507ec6 again) before dropping it entirely in 2025
(commit fb289fa0 "data: Reorganize default apps",
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/3642).

I don't know whether Libreoffice Writer is there intentionally, or just
because upstream used to have OpenOffice and then Libreoffice. It was
removed upstream in 2014 (6a142c42 "Remove some apps from the default
favourite apps list", https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=735682).

Adding Yelp (help browser) seems reasonable, although upstream never did.

TextEditor was added in 2024 by commit c991239c "data: Add Text Editor to
the dash by default" with justification "to prevent it from being too empty
by default", so I think we only need to do that if our list becomes very
short. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/3135

Calculator was added in
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/3642 with no
justification that I can see.

    smcv