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Desktop entry

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Reference:wiki.archlinux.org

Freedesktop specification ​

Full documentation here.

Create entry ​

Desktop entries are defined at:

  • User: ~/.local/share/applications
  • System: /usr/share/applications

For example, to add a desktop entry for the application osu, add a file called osu.desktop with:

txt
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Osu!
Comment=Rhythm is just a click away
Categories=Game
Exec=/usr/local/games/osu.AppImage
Terminal=false

TIP

Only Type and Name are required.

One may install desktop menu entries with xdg-desktop-menu.

shell
xdg-desktop-menu install --novendor osu.desktop

Icon ​

To add icon, specify the path to it in Icon:

txt
[Desktop Entry]
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/osu.png

Icons are looked for in the following directories:

  1. $HOME/.icons (for backwards compatibility)
  2. $XDG_DATA_DIRS/icons
  3. /usr/share/pixmaps

If moving the file to any of these directories, specifying only the name is enough:

txt
[Desktop Entry]
Icon=osu

Some apps add icons in other places (like /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/xxx.svg). Run the command bellow so the icon can be found:

shell
sudo gtk-update-icon-cache

Default terminal ​

If using Terminal=true, we need a workaround to open on newer terminals.

shell
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/alacritty /usr/bin/xterm