see also desktop #5: Desktop icons - emblems are removed, but required
I just updated Gnome desktop from version-??(Fedora19) to
- gnome-session-3.26.1-1.fc27 - gnome-3.26
- gnome-desktop3-3.26.2-1.fc27 - gnome-3.26
- nautilus-3.26.3.1-1.fc2 - gnome-3.26
- nemo-3.6.5-1.fc27 - gnome-3.26
The desktop is managed by nautilus, while I use nemo for the actual filesystem navigation. I am not sure whether this issue is more a desktop or a nautilus issue, anyhow. Started to guess the GUI style responsibility due to the default is more desktop related - at least logical and functional.
The former release supported static and dynamic custom icons with emblems on desktop entries managed by nautilus as well as for arbitrary file system objects presented by nautilus and/or nemo. See legacy "gvfs-set-attribute".
The release 3.26 supports for nautilus custom icons only, while nemo still supports emblems, including a property dialogue. The interface gio set works fine and sets the custom attributes for icons as well as emblems.
The emblems in general support a serious facility to show the state of an item. I am currently working on a project which displays dynamically the last execution state on the desktop(-icon) as a combination of the colored icon in combination with the emblem. Thus supports with a little mechanics for e.g. the last state when crashed or killed.
So I would tend to say, the the emblems must not be dropped from the GUI - neither from the technical component desktop nor the default desktop manager nautilus.
So for short, I see - if it is so - the removal of the emblems as a serious bug.