Opened 3 years ago

Closed 3 years ago

#666 closed enhancement (fixed)

OSGeo4W-NG: Reinstate QGIS3 shortcut

Reported by: Synper311 Owned by: osgeo4w-dev@…
Priority: minor Component: Installer
Version: Keywords:
Cc: busch1, Synper311

Description

Feature description. OSGeo4W-NG does not create the generic "QGIS3" shortcut, but only the more explicit QGIS Desktop 3.18.0 shortcut types. This leads to a less than stellar UX as the QGIS Desktop 3.x.x shortcut will have to be re-pinned to the Start Menu, Taskbar, etc. every time a version changes, as the shortcut name itself changes.

Come to think of it, just a QGIS shortcut would be even better, as it would allow it to persist across major version upgrades, as well (QGIS 3.x to QGIS 4.x).

Having the more general QGIS3 shortcut generated by the older OSGeo4W installer was really nice, as it would persists across version upgrades without constantly needing to be re-pinned.

Change History (13)

comment:2 by busch1, 3 years ago

hm, on Windows 10 there are problems if you want to use a different name for the icon (e.g. "QGIS LTR"). When starting QGIS the "missing" icon "QGIS 3" is created automatically anyway. However, the link then targets the QGIS' exe file. But if you work with a customized setup and point the shortcut e.g. to a special batch file to start QGIS, the use of the icon "QGIS 3" leads to a possibly completely new default profile. This is not recommended. Therefore I think it's good that the icon is no longer created by default.

comment:3 by Synper311, 3 years ago

But it isn't created automatically with OSGeo4W-NG.

No custom setup, either. This is for Out-Of-Box-Experience.

comment:4 by busch1, 3 years ago

Correct, with the new installer the icon is no longer created and in my humble opinion that's the correct way. In my customized setup I set the icon in the start menu itself and it then points to the correct batch file for QGIS startup.

comment:5 by busch1, 3 years ago

Okay, maybe a bit incorrectly formulated. Of course, during the initial or default installation, a QGIS icon must be created so that the user can also start QGIS without any problems. But - if this icon is deleted, it must not be automatically recreated, in my opinion. However, with the old installer the behavior was like this. As soon as the "QGIS 3" icon is missing, it's recreated when QGIS starts.

comment:6 by Synper311, 3 years ago

What I was suggesting was more along the lines of changing the existing QGIS Desktop 3.18.x style shortcut into a more "stable" named QGIS3 or maybe even just QGIS shortcut, so that pinned shortcuts to the task bar and start menu do not get un-pinned every single update like they did prior.

comment:7 by busch1, 3 years ago

Ah, okay - I see. Perhaps our intentions are in the same direction. I would imagine that the same process is responsible for removing the (old) icons as for creating them.

comment:8 by jef, 3 years ago

The shortcut was created on-the-fly by QGIS (and still is in "vanilla" QGIS - but QGISes in the testing repo are patched to stop that). OSGeo4W is carrying multiple versions (ltr, latest release, nightlies thereof and of master) and QGIS used to create and recreate shortcuts as QGIS3. Pinning a running instance works however and each packages uses different executable names ($pkg-bin.exe).

comment:9 by jef, 3 years ago

Conclusion?

Last edited 3 years ago by jef (previous) (diff)

comment:10 by jef, 3 years ago

Cc: busch1 Synper311 added

in reply to:  9 comment:11 by Synper311, 3 years ago

Replying to jef:

Conclusion?

I would still prefer for a generic QGIS3 (or better yet, QGIS) shortcut to be created for the reasons I outlined above, but since I don't know how to do the scripting for it and submit the PR... 🤷 I'm not really able to say much more than that.

Your call, obviously, since you do all the work/maintenance.

comment:13 by jef, 3 years ago

Resolution: fixed
Status: newclosed

The individual qgis packages now know their shortcut name (it's passed via the QGIS_WIN_APP_NAME environment variable) and the exe (tries to re-) create the shortcut by that name instead of QGIS3.

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