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appimage

How to resolve desktop-file-not-found when creating AppImage with AppStream upstream metadata?

I am having difficulty adding AppStream upstream metadata to my project's AppImage.

Below are the relevant parts of the file structure of my AppImage:

something.AppDir
  |__AppRun
  |__io.github.accountname.repositoryname.desktop
  |__icon.png
  |__usr
      |__share
           |__metainfo
                |__io.github.accountname.repositoryname.appdata.xml

Within its file usr/share/metainfo/io.github.account.project.appdata.xml, the following statement related to .desktop exist:

<launchable type="desktop-id">io.github.accountname.repositoryname.desktop</launchable>

However, after issuing the command:

$ ./appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage something.AppDir

these messages appears:

appimagetool, continuous build (commit 5735cc5), build <local dev build> built on 2023-03-08 22:52:04 UTC
Using architecture x86_64
/home/user/projects/something.AppDir should be packaged as something-x86_64.AppImage
AppStream upstream metadata found in usr/share/metainfo/io.github.accountname.repositoryname.appdata.xml
Trying to validate AppStream information with the appstreamcli tool
In case of issues, please refer to https://github.com/ximion/appstream
io.github.accountname.repositoryname.appdata.xml
  I: io.github.accountname.repositoryname:~: content-rating-missing
  W: io.github.accountname.repositoryname:~: desktop-file-not-found

✘ Validation failed: warnings: 1, infos: 1, pedantic: 4
run_external: subprocess exited with status 3Failed to validate AppStream information with appstreamcli

How do I resolve these issues when appstreamcli validate is successful:

$ appstreamcli validate --pedantic something.AppDir/usr/share/metainfo/io.github.accountname.repositoryname.appdata.xml
P: io.github.accountname.repositoryname:22: screenshot-no-caption
P: io.github.accountname.repositoryname:~: releases-info-missing
I: io.github.accountname.repositoryname:~: content-rating-missing
P: io.github.accountname.repositoryname:19: screenshot-no-caption

✔ Validation was successful: infos: 1, pedantic: 3

The io.github.account.project.appdata.xml file was created using this recommended online tool

The appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage is from here.

Solution

  • I discovered that the following change to the file structure mentioned in my question is needed:

    something.AppDir
  |__AppRun
  |__io.github.accountname.repositoryname.desktop (symlink from usr/share/appliacations)
  |__icon.png
  |__usr
      |__share
           |__metainfo
                |__io.github.accountname.repositoryname.appdata.xml
           |__applications
                 |__io.github.accountname.repositoryname.desktop

    Essentially, the io.github.accountname.repositoryname.desktop ought to be placed in the folder something.AppDir/usr/share/applications. Then symlink this file into the something.AppDir folder as described in AppImage documentation.