elementary
Symbol or label to signify a system app
Problem
Application menu displays all apps present, either from Flatpak, APT, or any .desktop file for, steam apps,
However flatpak apps offer to deinstall while the others just have a greyed out button. The application menu is aware of what is flatpak and what isnt - but users may be confused why there are apps they cannot uninstall
by default there are the feedback, switchboard, appcenter, multitasking, terminal, shortcuts apps (and later "Monitor") I can imagine that some users will want to install the official DEB package offered by some apps on their website (here using a minecraft launcher who provides a DEB, but iirc Steam and Discord offer DEB too), so while this format is not encouraged, less savvy users may be confused why they cannot deinstall later
a greyed out label feels like the app cannot be uninstalled for unintelligible reasons.
Proposal
A way to convey to the user the application cannot be uninstalled by this mean.
Maybe an emblem on bottom left of the icon to signify "this is a system-installed app", and replace the greyed out "Deinstall" label text for these with a greyed out "System app" label to signify "there is no deinstall suggestion because this is embedded in the system now"
Prior Art (Optional)
No response
Saying it is APT or Appimage would help avoid confusion ("why is my pcloud a system app?"). But require checking further than "does the desktop file has a exec=flatpak run?" Else im not sure what other wording to use ? "Not a Flatpak" will also do a confuse
Also else we could straight up remove this and let people go and uninstall in appcenter
EDIT: For the purpose of the feature, an emblem wouldnt be needed - The uninstall label would be enough. Currently there is currently no communication at all.
The applications menu is actually not aware at all of the installation method for an app. All the menu is aware of is whether AppCenter returns a result for this app, so the "uninstall" and "view in appcenter" items are always either both disabled or both enabled. It seems like maybe a more simple fix would be to just not show these items if AppCenter doesn't return a result for that app. That's what it seems like iOS does for example if you long press on a system app, if someone can verify how Android handles it, that might helpful prior art as well
We flatly do not support any method for installing 3rd party apps than through Flatpak. If we go image-based or switch to Fedora or something in a future version deb package installs would no longer work, so I don't think it's worth trying to add special support for them. This would also really complicate our cross platform story. AppImage just doesnt integrate and is not even worth looking at its so poorly designed and not made to follow any standards.
Hey ! Yes. Following our discussion on Discord i meant to come back here and amend the screenshots
The gist of the idea was not other installation methods, but communicating to the user why something cannot be deinstalled or shown in appcenter
Somehow it seems you were left in that discussion on the feeling this is about installation method. It isnt. It's about conveying more info than "no :|"
Not displaying any menu entry sounds worse than greying it out tbh
So it would be pretty much in this manner, if you want to remove labels
Mails is in a weird spot, it exists in Appcenter. So appears as uninstallable, but is not. So it would allow uninstalling here.
So asking Appcenter is no good. Why not ask flatpak directly ?
But in all cases there is a distinction, not communicated to the user, of "likely Flatpak" and "not flatpak"
VS
Somehow it seems you were left in that discussion on the feeling this is about installation method. It isnt
This is the title of your issue report :)
The version of Mail that's installed is actually not the Flatpak version from AppCenter. That's why the menu entries are disabled. If the entry is disabled that means appcenter said "no this is not from me". You would have the same result if you asked Flatpak directly, it would say "no this isn't from me"
Somehow it seems you were left in that discussion on the feeling this is about installation method. It isnt
This is the title of your issue report :)
Yeah just... Lets forget about deb and appimage. The crux of it was more "flatpak" and "not flatpak"
The version of Mail that's installed is actually not the Flatpak version from AppCenter. That's why the menu entries are disabled. If the entry is disabled that means appcenter said "no this is not from me". You would have the same result if you asked Flatpak directly, it would say "no this isn't from me"
they are enabled for me, but Mail do not appear in Flatpak List. So appcenter says junk. Ive seen reported "cannot uninstall mail" somewhere so not only for me
Somewhere else you remarked application-menu could solve that itself because of another bug where appcenter didnt say anything, so i was running on that idea: how do we know we can uninstall something or not ?
Oh hm yeah that is weird that mail shows it enabled. I guess because both deb and flatpak versions exist and the applications menu can't know which one this is. That's definitely a bug but it's a different bug I think because that's a false positive