<p></p>
<p><b>@b4n</b> requested changes on this pull request.</p>

<p>I am not sure we do want this, but maybe.  I don't see much downside, but perhaps when building with <code>--enable-binreloc</code> (gives <code>Exec=//bin/geany</code> which is… well, both right an wrong), yet I don't know how much sense a .desktop makes for a relocatable installation.<br>
So let's say we're happy with it.</p>
<p>However, I don't like the implementation.  IMO, we should rather do something like <a class="commit-link" data-hovercard-type="commit" data-hovercard-url="https://github.com/b4n/geany/commit/884309bd6e7969f7b2d01592fa6741cd76b1580b/hovercard" href="https://github.com/b4n/geany/commit/884309bd6e7969f7b2d01592fa6741cd76b1580b">b4n@<tt>884309b</tt></a> -- and AFAIK it's how other do.</p>
<p>This said, full path is not a popular trend in my Debian stable, which kind of makes me wonder if there is a downside I can't think about:</p>
<div class="highlight highlight-source-shell"><pre>$ rgrep <span class="pl-s"><span class="pl-pds">'</span>Exec *= */<span class="pl-pds">'</span></span> /usr/share/applications/ <span class="pl-k">|</span> wc -l <span class="pl-c"><span class="pl-c">#</span> absolute paths</span>
27
$ rgrep <span class="pl-s"><span class="pl-pds">'</span>Exec *= *[^/]<span class="pl-pds">'</span></span> /usr/share/applications/ <span class="pl-k">|</span> wc -l <span class="pl-c"><span class="pl-c">#</span> non-absolute paths</span>
233</pre></div><hr>

<p>In <a href="https://github.com/geany/geany/pull/2728#discussion_r558865279">m4/geany-utils.m4</a>:</p>
<pre style='color:#555'>> @@ -11,6 +11,18 @@ AC_DEFUN([GEANY_PREFIX],
        if test "x$exec_prefix" = xNONE; then
                exec_prefix=$prefix
        fi
+
+       # The $bindir variable is equal to the literal string "${exec_dir}/bin"
+       # rather than the actual path. pkgconfig (.pc) files can use that ok, but
+       # other files written out by configure require the literal path.
+       #
+       # If the --bindir argument is given to configure, then $bindir will already
+       # be equal to an absolute path.
</pre>
<p>Actually no, AFAIK it's valid to pass <code>--bindir</code> with placeholders.  The only "reliable" way of expanding one of the dir variables is to eval it until it stops changing -- which is both annoying and tricky.  IIRC there's a 3rd party macro to do so, but in any case it's not great.</p>
<p>The best solution usually is to perform these replacements at make time.</p>

<hr>

<p>In <a href="https://github.com/geany/geany/pull/2728#discussion_r558865523">configure.ac</a>:</p>
<pre style='color:#555'>> @@ -9,6 +9,9 @@ AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])
 AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([1.11 -Wall parallel-tests subdir-objects])
 AC_CONFIG_HEADERS([config.h])
 
+PKG_DESC="A fast and lightweight IDE using GTK+"
</pre>
<p>I think that's kind of over-engineering the thing, and IMO should at least not be part of this change.</p>

<hr>

<p>In <a href="https://github.com/geany/geany/pull/2728#discussion_r558866095">geany.pc.in</a>:</p>
<pre style='color:#555'>> +Name: @PACKAGE_NAME@
+Description: @PKG_DESC@
</pre>
<p>This is unrelated to the proposed change</p>

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