Include compulsory apps in the category view
@joaquimrocha
Submitted by Joaquim Rocha Link to original bug (#772051)
Description
Currently GNOME Software is (by design) removing compulsory apps from the category view. So many applications that are part of the core do not show up in the category view, this is even more evident if the OS has a number of core apps in an immutable system base (as Endless OS does).
I understand the reasoning of not showing apps in the categories when they cannot be removed if we think of GNOME Software as an app installer. However, the way GNOME Software has been evolving, and especially how it is used by other distros, makes it more of an app center than an app installer. Endless' users use GNOME Software to discover which applications they have available and what they can be used for. Thus, we need to show compulsory apps in the category views because that part of exploring GNOME Software. It also makes the design more consistent as we're showing those apps in the installed page anyway.
Any deployments that still want to hide those apps from the category view can easily do that from a plugin. The opposite is unfortunately not possible as the code that removes those apps from the view is part of the core.
Let me know if this sounds reasonable for you and I will send a patch.