fix(icons): resolve window icons via StartupWMClass desktop entry field

[ImIvanGil]

Problem

Some apps show a generic / missing icon in the workspaces indicator and other icon-resolving widgets, even though their .desktop file declares an Icon= correctly. Most visible example: Brave.

Why it happens

AppSearch.getIconFromDesktopEntry() matches the window class against three .desktop fields:

• Exec[0] (the executable basename)
• Name
• Keywords[]

But it does not check StartupWMClass, which is the field freedesktop defined exactly for this purpose — the bridge between window class and .desktop entry.

Brave's /usr/share/applications/brave-browser.desktop:

Name=Brave
Exec=brave %U
StartupWMClass=brave-browser
Icon=brave-desktop

The window's class on Wayland is brave-browser. None of Brave (Name), brave (Exec[0]), or Keywords equal brave-browser, so the function returns null and guessIcon falls through to image-missing.

Fix

Add app.startupClass === normalizedClassName as the first check in getIconFromDesktopEntry(). Quickshell's DesktopEntry already exposes startupClass as a first-class property — no new dependencies, no schema changes.

+if (app.startupClass && app.startupClass.toLowerCase() === normalizedClassName) {
+    return app.icon || "application-x-executable";
+}
 if (app.command && app.command.length > 0) {
     ...

Impact beyond Brave

Any .desktop entry that uses StartupWMClass to disambiguate its window class from its Exec/Name now resolves correctly. Other commonly-affected apps:

• Spotify (spotify.desktop → StartupWMClass=Spotify, Exec=spotify)
• Steam (custom WMClass per game)
• Slack / Discord flatpak variants
• Most Electron apps that override their WMClass
• VSCode-style apps with code-url-handler and friends (also why those have entries in substitutions)

The substitutions table in AppSearch.qml (line 107) is a manual workaround that this fix obviates for many of those entries. Could clean some of those up in a follow-up if you want, but kept this PR focused on the root-cause fix.

Testing

Before: Brave showed a generic / leaf icon in the workspaces indicator.
After: Brave shows its proper icon (brave-desktop).

GUI apps that don't use StartupWMClass (or where StartupWMClass matches a field already checked) behave identically — the new check is non-destructive and short-circuits to the existing branches when it doesn't match.

Diff stats

modules/services/AppSearch.qml | 7 +++++++
1 file changed, 7 insertions(+)