Comment 4 for bug 622146

Ok, I'll try to work on that when I have a couple of hours available.

From what I can see, we can get an issue with personal launchers created by user, which means:
1. Right click on the panel "add to panel", "create a launcher" and filling an app name/icon/command line
1. (bis) right click on the desktop -> "create a launcher" and filling an app name/icon/command line
-> this create an icon either on ~/.gnome2/panel2.d/default/launchers/ or on ~/<Desktop> (<Desktop being translated)

(this isn't the case if we drag and drop a launcher on the panel from the Applications menu, the original desktop file in /usr/share/applications is still in use)

2. if we transition that to the unity panel, the icon will appear.
3. if we click on it, bamf will try to match the application to a destkop file in /usr/share/applications/, and so, we will have two launchers from the same app appearing and not the good match.

What to do in that case? In addition to that, all user launchers aren't in /usr/share/applications/ and so, those not having a desktop file there won't be match as well (there will only be transitionned icon in the panel, but not match on running)

I see three ways of doing that:
1. add some magic to bamf to get that case right (and discover from which .desktop file the application has been called).
This will be the best fix, not sure about the timeline of it. It will enable also in the feature for people adding launchers manually and having a good match.
-> Just tested with latest bamf, and can confirm it's not working as of today (rename and copy a gconf key like firefox.desktop to ~/Desktop, clicking on it after restarting unity -> a new firefox launcher appears and is matched, not the manual one).

2. Check on personal .desktop file which command-line is set, making a dpkg -L to get if there is a .desktop file from the same package launching the same command line and setting the new launcher to that path. This is more work on the first launch, and won't transition launchers which don't match exactly from the command line (they won't appear in unity). But can transition more options than 3.

3. Only transition desktop file resulting from a drag and drop from the Applications menu: this will only work from those in the panel, not on the Desktop. And won't work for people creating launchers with right click.

I see no issue with launchers in current lucid netbook-launcher has the limitation was the same than current unity (can't add favorites which don't have a .desktop file in /usr/share/applications)

I'm waiting for some inputs about which strategy seems to be the best.