Anatomy of a .

desktop File
One of the beautiful things about Linux is that developers tend to be conscientious about the use of technical standards. Freedesktop.org maintains a wide series of standards for X Window System desktops, which apply to Gnome, KDE, LXDE and XFCE (Im not sure whether Fluxbox implements these standards.) The standard for desktop entries is still technically a draft, but is generally accepted by the larger X community. The .desktop file fills two primary functions: first, it informs the desktop environment how the file is to be handled by the desktop environment with regard to menu placement, display, environmental variables, and similar. In this function, it resides globally in /usr/share/applications/ and for specific users in $HOME/.local/applications. The second function is the direct shortcut on the desktop itself. In this function, it resides in $HOME/Desktop. The same file fills both functions, so if you want to have an application both in the menu and on your desktop, youll need to put the .desktop file in two places. Lets take a closer look, shall we? The .desktop file is generally in a key,value pair format. This means that, generally speaking, each line will look like this: key=value

Required Elements
Type specifies the type of desktop entry. Currently, there are three valid types: Application, Link and Directory. Name The name of the specific application or directory. This determines the actual display name for the menu/desktop entry. Exec provides the actual command to execute, with associated arguments (if necessary.)

Optional Elements
Version specifies the version of the Desktop Entry Specification to which the .desktop file conforms (currently 1.0). Encoding The encoding for the .desktop file. The standard calls for UTF-8. GenericName specifies the generic name of the application. NoDisplay This is a boolean (i.e. true/false) element. If set to true, it means this application exists but should not appear in menus. This is most frequently used to associate an application with MIME types so file managers know how to handle things. Comment specifies tooltip entries for the file. Icon specifies the icon to be used. This entry supports both icons supported under the FreeDesktop Icon Theme Specification (which I havent yet fully grokked) as well as absolute paths. Hidden another boolean entry which, if true, essentially treats the application as having been deleted. OnlyShowIn If you use multiple desktop environments (say, for instance, you use both Gnome and LXDE) and only want the .desktop entry to apply to a few of the

environments, this line specifies the environments in which the entry should apply. This entry is mutually exclusive with NotShowIn. NotShowIn As above, but instead of specifying where to display the entry, it displays where NOT to display the entry. This is more useful if you have numerous environments but only want to exclude one or two. Path specifies the working directory for an application to run in. Terminal a boolean entry which specifies whether or not the application requires a terminal to run. MimeType specifies any associated MIME types with this application. Categories Categories in which this application should appear in menus. Supported categories vary from system to system, but there is an emerging standard for categories. Finally, any line beginning with an octothorpe (#) is considered a comment.

Putting It All Together

Now that we have all the elements, we can open up any text editor and create a .desktop entry. Heres a very simple sample: [Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Version=1.0 Type=Application Terminal=false Exec=$HOME/MyApp Name=My Application Icon=$HOME/Icons/MyIcon.png Save your entry (as filename.desktop), then put a copy in $HOME/.local/applications and (if you want) another in $HOME/Desktop. If you did it right (and if youre running Gnome, KDE or LXDE), your new application should show up in your menu and (possibly) on your desktop.