Linux .desktop equivalents to Windows Start menu shortcuts

[Siep Kroonenberg]

On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 11:32:05AM +0100, Zdenek Wagner wrote:
> st 20. 3. 2019 v 11:07 odesílatel Norbert Preining <preining at logic.at> napsal:
> >
> > Hi Zdenek,
> >
> > > I have two small bash scripts, one for a menu, one for a desktop icon.
> > > Of course, both can be done in a single script, it was just a test. I
> > > have also the .desktop files but for a dummy application, I was only
> > > looking for a working test.
> >
> > What does the shell script(s) do? Generate a .desktop file, but for
> > which program?
> >
> It might be better to generate the .desktop file manually and include
> it in the installer package but since it is a plain text file, it can
> be generated by any script on demand. My experiments are now available
> from http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/desktop/
> When developing a software tool, I always test small building blocks separately
> 
> > > As I found, if the .desktop files are just copied to the directories,
> > > they do not work, it is necessary to restart X. If xdg-install-menu
> > > and xdg-install-icon are used, they work immediatelly.
> >
> > On Debian it works. This is distribution specific. Even if I put a
> > .desktop file into /usr/local/share/applications/ I automatically get it
> > working. Same under $HOME.
> >
> I have only tried KDE in Fedora. It is possible that even Gnome in
> Fedora behaves differently.

For fvwm, lines

AddToMenu ....
+ "XDG" Popup XDGMenu

in ~/.fvwm/config add a menu composed from .desktop files to my
hand-made fvwm menu. So TL .desktop files would probably be useful
even for many users of window managers.

This is on Ubuntu 18.04.

-- 
Siep Kroonenberg