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Asked: 2012-04-15 01:49:21 +0800 CST

Who decides what category the software in the Ubuntu Software Centre is filed under, and who can we report errors to?

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I noticed when browsing through the Ubuntu Software Centre that some programs seem to be placed in the wrong categories, for example Pinta, an image editor, appears under Developer Tools (instead of Graphics) in my list of installed programs.

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Is this a case of the developer incorrectly categorising their software when they uploaded it to the software centre, or does Canonical decided what goes where?

And if we notice an obvious mistake who do we inform, the software developer or file a bug somehow?

software-center

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This is probably an error in how software-center parses the .desktop file of Pinta.

    Some common reasons why an application ends up in the wrong categories:

    • The Categories option in the .desktop file of the application is incorrect.
    • Software-center interpreted the application wrongly. You can read about how the software-center classifies the applications into various categories here.
    • A stale .desktop file got stuck in the app-install-data, which makes the application to be classified wrongly.

    If you think an application is categorized under a wrong section, file a bug report against the package and software-center in Launchpad.

    You can follow how to report such a bug report by following this similar bug report against GParted.

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  2. I believe packages can appear in multiple categories, and so when they are selecting categories for a package they include as many as reasonably possible in an attempt to give packages a fair chance at being seen by showing up in all/any categories someone might look for it in.

    This is just a guess though, and I don't know who you would categorization errors to, hopefully someone else can help out there.

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  3. I know that there is also a place in the deb packages which the makers of them specify a place in the menu. I would think that would be the same place the Software Center would retrieve the imformation. Just extract the contents of one those packages from dotdeb.com and navigate to /usr/share/applications. Drag and drop the Icon you see there into gedit and look at the line which starts with the word "Categories"

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