Man1 - desktop-file-edit.1

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

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

desktop-file-edit [EDITOPTION]… FILE

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.

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.

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.

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.

If you find bugs in the desktop-file-install program, please report these on https://bugs.freedesktop.org.

desktop-file-validate(1) update-desktop-database(1)