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You are here: manpages

DESKTOP-FILE-INSTALL

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: FREEDESKTOP.ORG
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

desktop-file-install, desktop-file-edit - Installation and edition of desktop files

SYNOPSIS

desktop-file-install [--dir=DIR] [-m MODE|--mode=MODE] [--vendor=VENDOR] [--delete-original] [--rebuild-mime-info-cache] [EDITOPTION]... FILE...

desktop-file-edit [EDITOPTION]... FILE

DESCRIPTION

The desktop-file-install program is a tool to install, and optionally edit, desktop files. The desktop-file-edit program is a tool to edit a desktop file. They are mostly useful for developers and packagers.

Various options are available to edit the desktop files. The edit options can be specified more than once and will be processed in the same order as the options passed to the program.

desktop-file-install and desktop-file-edit will always try to validate the resulting desktop file. A failure to validate might lead to the abortion of the installation of the desktop files.

The list of registered categories and desktop environments is defined in the Menu specification: http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/menu-spec.

OPTIONS

The following options are supported:

--dir=DIR: Install desktop files to the DIR directory.
-m, --mode=MODE: Set the permissions of the destination files to MODE.
--vendor=VENDOR: Add a vendor prefix to the desktop files. If a file already has this prefix, nothing happens; else, the file will be named VENDOR-FILE. For example: if VENDOR is freedesktop.org and FILE is specification.desktop, the result file will be freedesktop.org-specification.desktop.
--delete-original: Delete the source desktop files, leaving only the target files. Effectively "renames" the desktop files.
--rebuild-mime-info-cache: Rebuild the MIME types application database after installing the desktop files. See update-desktop-database(1) for information about this database.

EDIT OPTIONS

The following edit options are supported:

--set-key=KEY: Set the KEY key to the value passed to the next --set-value option. A matching --set-value option is mandatory.
--set-value=VALUE: Set the key specified with the previous --set-key option to VALUE. A matching --set-key option is mandatory.
--set-name=NAME: Set the name (key Name) to NAME. If a name was already set, it will be overridden. Localizations of the old name will be removed.
--copy-name-to-generic-name: Copy the value of the Name key to the GenericName key. Note that a desktop file requires a Name key to be valid, so this option will always have an effect.
--set-generic-name=GENERIC-NAME: Set the generic name (key GenericName) to GENERIC-NAME. If a generic name was already set, it will be overridden. Localizations of the old generic name will be removed.
--copy-generic-name-to-name: Copy the value of the GenericName key to the Name key, if the GenericName key is present.
--set-comment=COMMENT: Set the comment (key Comment) to COMMENT. If a comment was already set, it will be overridden. Localizations of the old comment will be removed.
--set-icon=ICON: Set the icon (key Icon) to ICON. If an icon was already set, it will be overridden. Localizations of the old icon will be removed.
--add-category=CATEGORY: Add CATEGORY to the list of categories (key Categories). If CATEGORY was already present in the list, this operation is a no-op. A non-registered category should be prefixed with X-.
--remove-category=CATEGORY: Remove CATEGORY from the list of categories (key Categories). If CATEGORY was not present in the list, this operation is a no-op.
--add-mime-type=MIME-TYPE: Add MIME-TYPE to the list of MIME types (key MimeType). If MIME-TYPE was already present in the list, this operation is a no-op.
--remove-mime-type=MIME-TYPE: Remove MIME-TYPE from the list of MIME types (key MimeType). If MIME-TYPE was not present in the list, this operation is a no-op.
--add-only-show-in=ENVIRONMENT: Add ENVIRONMENT to the list of desktop environments where the desktop files should be displayed (key OnlyShowIn). If ENVIRONMENT was already present in the list, this operation is a no-op. A non-registered desktop environment should be prefixed with X-. Note that an empty OnlyShowIn key in a desktop file means that the desktop file will be displayed in all environments.
--remove-only-show-in=ENVIRONMENT: Remove ENVIRONMENT from the list of desktop environments where the desktop files should be displayed (key OnlyShowIn). If ENVIRONMENT was not present in the list, this operation is a no-op.
--add-not-show-in=ENVIRONMENT: Add ENVIRONMENT to the list of desktop environments where the desktop files should not be displayed (key NotShowIn). If ENVIRONMENT was already present in the list, this operation is a no-op. A non-registered desktop environment should be prefixed with X-. Note that an empty NotShowIn key in a desktop file means that the desktop file will be displayed in all environments.
--remove-not-show-in=ENVIRONMENT: Remove ENVIRONMENT from the list of desktop environments where the desktop files should not be displayed (key NotShowIn). If ENVIRONMENT was not present in the list, this operation is a no-op.
--remove-key=KEY: Remove the KEY key from the desktop files, if present.

ENVIRONMENT

Some environment variables change the behavior of desktop-file-install:

DESKTOP_FILE_VENDOR

: This variable can be used as an alternative to the --vendor option. If the --vendor option is used, this environment variable will be ignored.

DESKTOP_FILE_INSTALL_DIR

: This variable can be used as an alternative to the --dir option. If the --dir option is used, this environment variable will be ignored.

RPM_BUILD_ROOT

: This variable is set when building RPM packages. If the --dir option and the DESKTOP_FILE_INSTALL_DIR environment variable are not used, it will automatically be prepended to the default install directory to install the desktop files appropriately when building packages.