State of a default command execution interface support on xdg platforms

[ManuelSchneid3r]

Running a command in a terminal from another app is a common usecase. Almost all terminals provide such a command execution interface (-e, -x, -- or such). Clients of the desktop entry spec can guess, but they cant know for sure since terminals break their CLI (no offense, I'd be happy if you all break it to go to --).

There is a freedesktop spec proposal that tries to standardize the way we configure a default terminal for command execution. It implicitly solves the above problem by requiring the dektop entry to provide this info.

To support it (X-)ExecArg has to be added to the desktop file (like this, the reference implementation respects both) and, as the proposal specifies currently, make sure there is TerminalEmulator in Categories. It has not yet been approved, therefore the X-.

The draft states that the default should be -e (because xterm once did). But I think we should not have a default at all because we have to support terminals not having such an interface and even if we do (which will break a lot of configs) we should use -- (terminal authors should as well), because it is not a usual argument but instead changes the way the remainder of the command line is to be interpreted. So please be explicit.

As the author of a launcher I'd be even happy with the implicit changes to the lacking (we have the Terminal key, do we?) desktop entry spec. There is also a related intentapp draft and a terminal intent. I dont have a favorite, but a pragmatic opinion. This will help making Linux a better user experience and a less annoying developer experience.

Thank you

• PR in xdg-specs

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• Alacritty Expose the command execution interface using ExecArg alacritty/alacritty#8139
• BlackBox https://gitlab.gnome.org/raggesilver/blackbox/-/issues/388
• Contour xdg-terminal-exec support contour-terminal/contour#1570
• Cool Retro Term xdg-terminal-exec support Swordfish90/cool-retro-term#850
• Deepin Terminal https://github.com/orgs/linuxdeepin/discussions/9817
• Elementary Terminal xdg-terminal-exec support elementary/terminal#765
• Foot Terminal
• GNOME Console https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/console/-/issues/384
• GNOME Terminal Has it upstream
• Kitty
• LXDE Terminal
• Mate Terminal
• QTerminal
• Roxterm
• Simple Terminal (ST)
• Terminator Command execution interface support gnome-terminator/terminator#942
• Terminology
• Termite
• Tilix
• UXterm
• URXVT
• Wezterm Command execution interface support wez/wezterm#6008
• XFCE Terminal