Record: renaming the right-click item to AppImage Activator

Outcome

The MIME handler’s Name=, which is the label the right-click “Open With” menu shows, is now AppImage Activator. “AppImage Handler” is another project’s name. The entry, its record, its icon, the window’s program name, and StartupWMClass all moved with it, and handler install migrates an existing install rather than leaving the old name behind.

Why the Whole Name Moved, Not Only the Label

Renaming only Name= would have left appimage-handler.desktop, appimage-handler.svg, and appimage-handler.manifest on disk, which is the same collision under a different surface: the pre-rename entry still lists the AppImage MIME types, so it would still answer for them, and its icon would still shadow the new name in the theme. The rename therefore covers every installed artefact:

Was	Is
`Name=AppImage Handler`	`Name=AppImage Activator`
`appimage-handler.desktop`	`appimage-activator.desktop`
`appimage-handler.manifest`	`appimage-activator.manifest`
`appimage-handler.svg`	`appimage-activator.svg`
`StartupWMClass=appimage-handler`	`StartupWMClass=appimage-activator`
`GLib.set_prgname("appimage-handler")`	`GLib.set_prgname("appimage-activator")`
`us.bannister.appimage-handler`	`us.bannister.appimage-activator`
`appimage_handler_ui.py`	`appimage_activator_ui.py`

tests/95-handler-ui.sh became tests/95-activator-ui.sh.

Migration

handler install now removes the pre-rename entry, icon, and record, and reports each one it removed. Three details needed care:

The AppImage MIME definition had already been rewritten from application-x-executable to appimage-handler by an earlier install, so the rewrite now replaces either the original generic icon or the pre-rename icon. Without that, the generic icon name in appimage.xml would have stayed at the old value and never named the new icon.
The recorded previous defaults live in the record, so the new record is seeded from the pre-rename one when the new one does not exist yet. Otherwise the rename would have lost the appimagelauncher.desktop values that handler uninstall restores.
A default that still names the pre-rename entry counts as ours when the previous default is resolved, so the marker alone is not mistaken for a real previous handler.

handler status now reports a leftover pre-rename entry and names the command that removes it. handler uninstall reads either record and removes either name, so an install from before the rename can still be reversed.

Tests

tests/95-activator-ui.sh now sets up the pre-rename world in its isolated XDG home: the old entry, the old icon, the old record, and a mimeapps.list that makes the old entry the default for all three AppImage types. It then asserts that handler install:

writes Name=AppImage Activator, Icon=appimage-activator, and StartupWMClass=appimage-activator;
installs the activator icon and names it as the AppImage MIME generic icon, with no remaining application-x-executable;
removes the pre-rename entry, icon, and record, and reports that it did;
makes appimage-activator.desktop the default for application/vnd.appimage;
carries appimagelauncher.desktop into the new record as the previous default.

It also asserts the window presents itself as AppImage Activator and is still multi-instance. The tool’s reference to the script is checked in the source, not the binary: the compiler merges adjacent string literals, so the script name is not a literal substring of the executable.

scripts/program-install.sh removes the pre-rename script, the pre-rename icon next to it, and the pre-rename icon in the theme, so nothing from the old name survives an install.

State on This Host

Migrated and verified by hand:

all three AppImage MIME types report appimage-activator.desktop via xdg-mime query default and desktop-inspect --mime;
the record still holds previous_default=… appimagelauncher.desktop for all three types;
appimage-activator.desktop carries Name=AppImage Activator, Icon=appimage-activator, and StartupWMClass=appimage-activator; the old entry, icon, script, and record are gone;
desktop-inspect --icon appimage-activator resolves to ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/appimage-activator.svg;
the MIME definition names appimage-activator as the generic icon.

Also Removed

A tracked sources/tools/__pycache__/appimage_handler_ui.cpython-312.pyc had been committed by an earlier round. It is gone, and __pycache__/ and *.pyc are now ignored.

Verification

Verified 2026-09-23 with make test; all fifteen test scripts passed, and the real handler state above was read after make install and appimage-integrate handler install.

Commits

e583f50 Rename the right-click item to AppImage Activator