gnome-desktop-item-edit - GNOME Desktop file editor
gnome-desktop-item-edit [--create-new] filename
gnome-desktop-item-edit is the GNOME Desktop file editor, which you can use to create or edit the .desktop (known as desktop) file. GNOME uses a standard desktop file specification as proposed by freedesktop.org. A desktop file consists of a number of name-value pairs that define how a desktop should organize a particular application. As this is defined as an open standard, integration of applications into GNOME Desktop is relatively straightforward.
A basic entry in the desktop file must start with a tag called [Desktop Entry]. It can then have a number of name-value pairs as defined by the standard. The minimum entries are as follows:
Name the name of the application
Comment a textual description of the application which is displayed as a tooltip message by gnome-panel. When set appropriately, the comment can be localized within the same file.
Exec the name of the actual executable
Icon the file name of the icon image
Type the desktop file type
Categories a multi-string field which is used by gnome-panel to group applications into the appropriate categories.
These desktop files provide the information to gnome-panel, which places the application in the appropriate locations on the panel. In a similar manner, the GNOME file manager (Nautilus) uses information from the desktop files to display the ’applications:///’ view.
The following options are supported:
--create-new Creates a new .desktop file.
The following operands are supported:
filename The name of the desktop file to be edited or viewed.
Example 1: Editing an existing .desktop file
example% gnome-desktop-item-edit fullpath/filenameThis command invokes the launcher dialog and loads the contents of the specified desktop file into the relevant fields.
The following exit values are returned:
0 Application exited successfully
>0 Application exited with failure
The following files are used by this application:
/usr/bin/gnome-desktop-item-edit
Executable for GNOME Desktop file editor
/usr/share/applications/
Location of system desktop files
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
ATTRIBUTE TYPE ATTRIBUTE VALUE Availability SUNWgnome-panel Interface stability Volatile
gnome-panel(1), nautilus(1)
Latest version of the GNOME Desktop User Guide for your platform.
Written by Ghee Teo, Sun Microsystems Inc., 2003.
| SunOS 5.11 | gnome-desktop-item-edit (1) | 2 Oct 2003 |