HOWTO_Editing_FreeDesktop_Menus

Introducion

You know the menu that's shown if you start the kde-menu, gnome-menu, xfce-menu or something else. There's no real name for this kind of menu (it's also often called "root-menu"), but the menu is saved in a Freedesktop-Standard.

Where are the files saved?

The menus are made out of a "Main file" (.menu file). The file is written in XML, and it contains a kind of links to the Applications (.desktop files).

The Main file detailing system-wide default menu structure might be located in one of the followings directorys:

• /etc/xdg/menus/
• User-specific menu edits: ~/.config/menus/
• If you have not found your file yet, search for it: find / -iname *.menu

System-wide Menu entries (.desktop files) are stored in many places, for example:

• /usr/share/applications/
• Gnome applications: /opt/gnome/share/applications
• KDE applications:
  • /opt/kde3/share/applications/kde
  • /usr/share/appications/kde
• User-specific applications:
  • ~/.local/share/applications

Or search for the files: find / -iname *.desktop

Links

• a complete manual