DESKTOP-FILE-INSTALL(1) General Commands Manual DESKTOP-FILE-INSTALL(1)
NAME
desktop-file-install, desktop-file-edit - Installation and edition of
desktop files
SYNOPSIS
desktop-file-install [--dir=DIR] [-m MODE|--mode=MODE] [--vendor=VEN-
DOR] [--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 op-
tions 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/Specifica-
tions/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 VEN-
DOR-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 op-
tion. 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 re-
moved.
--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. Localiza-
tions 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 al-
ready set, it will be overridden. Localizations of the old com-
ment 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 re-
moved.
--add-category=CATEGORY
Add CATEGORY to the list of categories (key Categories). If CAT-
EGORY 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 ENVIRON-
MENT 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 ENVI-
RONMENT 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 ENVI-
RONMENT 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 op-
tion. 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 in-
stall directory to install the desktop files appropriately when
building packages.
BUGS
If you find bugs in the desktop-file-install program, please report
these on https://bugs.freedesktop.org.
SEE ALSO
desktop-file-validate(1) update-desktop-database(1)
FREEDESKTOP.ORG DESKTOP-FILE-INSTALL(1)
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