Messaging indicator not respecting blacklist

wow that was fast

This bug was fixed in the package indicator-messages - 0.5.94-0ubuntu1

---------------
indicator-messages (0.5.94-0ubuntu1) precise; urgency=low

  [ Ted Gould ]
  * New upstream release.
    * Fix for missing icons in the messaging menu (LP: #960553)
    * Fix i18n for description (LP: #957525)
    * Implementing initial testing
    * Fixing blacklists (LP: #939258)
  * debian/control: Adding dep on libgtest-dev

  [ Ken VanDine ]
  * debian/control: Don't build depend on libgtest-dev, it isn't in main
  * debian/rules: disable tests, they require libgtest-dev
 -- Ken VanDine <email address hidden> Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:00:10 -0400

I still have this problem with indicator-messages 0.5.4.94-0ubuntu1:

tjgq@velma:~$ aptitude show indicator-messages | grep Version
Version: 0.5.94-0ubuntu1
tjgq@velma:~$ ls -l .config/indicators/messages/applications-blacklist/
total 4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 tjgq tjgq 55 Mar 21 23:40 thunderbird -> /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/thunderbird
lrwxrwxrwx 1 tjgq tjgq 67 Mar 23 00:32 ubuntuone-control-panel -> /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/ubuntuone-control-panel
lrwxrwxrwx 1 tjgq tjgq 49 Mar 23 00:36 xchat -> /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/xchat

Yet Thunderbird, Ubuntu One and Xchat all appear in the indicator.

I'm not sure what changed here, but the blacklist has always worked properly for me in the past. It now doesn't work at all

So, this seems to add a new constraint on applications using this functionality that the blacklist file must be the full basename of the desktop file (including the file extension), so I need to make Thunderbird create a file called "thunderbird.desktop" rather than just "thunderbird" in order to make it work again. Was that intentional, and did anyone check what other applications are using this feature? It's quite late to be making a change like this.

If it's intentional, then I need to add a migration path to Thunderbird to cope with the change on upgrade.

Hey Chris, sorry that this is causing trouble.

Ted suggested using the basename of an app instead of its link target, because many users were copying desktop files in there instead of linking them. I didn't know that thunderbird didn't include the extension.

I'll try to get a fix into indicator-messages so that you don't need to add a migration path.

Oh, I didn't realise that it worked by linking the file to the desktop file? Is that still the case?

Currently in Thunderbird, we create a file named "thunderbird" and write the path of the desktop file in to it (and we check for this on startup too in order to decide on whether to enable the feature or not)

Fixed in lp:~larsu/indicator-messages/fix-blacklist-again, which will most probably land in the release charles is planning on doing later today.

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~indicator-applet-developers/indicator-messages/trunk.0.6/revision/264

> Merge lp:~larsu/indicator-messages/fix-blacklist-again to revert blacklist changes so that apps relying on the old behavior will work again.
>
> The new policy is: if a file in the blacklist folder is a symbolic link, use its target. If its filename ends on .desktop, use the file's basename (so that copying files works). Otherwise, use the contents of file (first line should contain path to a desktop file).
>
> Xref: bug #939258 and http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~indicator-applet-developers/indicator-messages/trunk.0.6/revision/259 and Merged branch lp:~larsu/indicator-messages/fix-blacklist-again