fix(launcher): drawer launches Terminal=true apps via xdg-terminal-exec

[ImIvanGil]

Problem

The app drawer (SUPER keybind) silently fails to launch any .desktop entry that has Terminal=true — e.g. btop, htop, nvim, ranger, lazygit, etc. Clicking these does literally nothing: no error, no flash, no terminal window. The behavior is hard to debug because the failure is invisible.

Root cause

LauncherView.executeApp() (line 228) calls Quickshell's DesktopEntry.execute() directly:

if (app && app.execute) {
    app.execute();
}

Quickshell's DesktopEntry.execute() (at least in older / illogical-impulse-quickshell-git 0.2.0) does not wrap Terminal=true entries in a terminal emulator — it simply runs the Exec line, which causes the TUI binary to crash immediately when stdin/stdout aren't a TTY.

Meanwhile, DockAppButton.qml:184 already uses AppSearch.launchApp() for the same purpose, which handles process spawning correctly via bash -c "setsid ...". So the drawer was inconsistent with the dock.

Fix

Two minimal changes:

1. LauncherView.qml — executeApp() now delegates to AppSearch.launchApp(app), matching the dock's behavior. Unifies app-launch logic across the shell.

2. AppSearch.qml — launchApp() now prepends xdg-terminal-exec to the command when the entry's runInTerminal is true. xdg-terminal-exec is the freedesktop default-terminal-spec wrapper — the canonical way to launch TUI apps from a desktop launcher.

Requirements for users

After this fix, users need to have xdg-terminal-exec installed (AUR on Arch, packaged on most modern distros) and configured via ~/.config/xdg-terminals.list:

kitty.desktop

(or alacritty.desktop, foot.desktop, etc.)

Worth mentioning in the README under "Requirements" — happy to add that in a follow-up if requested.

Testing

Reproduced the bug with:

• btop (Console-only, Terminal=true)
• htop (same)
• nvim (Terminal=true)
• ranger (Terminal=true)

Before this patch: silent failure for all four.
After this patch: each one opens correctly in kitty (the configured terminal via xdg-terminals.list).

GUI apps (Brave, Dolphin, etc.) continue to work unchanged — runInTerminal is false, the wrap branch is skipped, behavior is identical to before.

Diff stats

modules/services/AppSearch.qml            | 7 ++++++-
modules/widgets/launcher/LauncherView.qml | 9 ++++++---
2 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

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This is the first of a series of fixes I want to upstream from a longer debugging session on a CachyOS + Ambxst setup. Each subsequent fix will be its own PR to keep review focused. Happy to iterate based on feedback.