Linux Desktop Shortcut

[FlashX]

Hi
Many people many wonder how to add an application in the desktop menu, or create a desktop shortcut from the menu. The following will explain how to add application to the desktop menu and from there to your desktop. Linux uses a .desktop file for icons. The locations of the icons depends on the distribution and the desktop environment you are using. I am using Fedor 9 and Gnome as a desktop environment so I will explain you with respect to these.
The content of the .desktop file are somewhat like this
[Desktop Entry]

Encoding=UTF-8
GenericName=Generic Piece Of Software
Name=FooBar
Exec=/usr/bin/foo.sh
Icon=foo.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Qt;Gnome;Applications;

The name of the file is foo.desktop. Mostly the .desktop files are located in /usr/share/applications.
Explanation of the contents of the file

Generic name == Brief Description of application.
Icon == The image to display for the icon
Terminal == Is this a terminal application, should I start it as one?
Type == Type of program this is, can be used in placing the icon in a menu.
Categories == This information is what is mainly used to place the icon in a given menu if an XML file to specify such is not present. The setup for menus is handled a little differently by everyone.

Encoding, Name and Exec should speak for themselves.
mostly the image files are located in /usr/share/icons directory. Under Gnome mostly all the images are in png format.

[NetworkeR]

Hi
Thank you very much for your post.
Actually even I was looking for something like that because I want to add a specific file to the menu and then create a desktop shortcut. I have done it successfully now and even I have added a icon to it. I am happy now. Thanks for your post.

[spuff]

Hi
The above mentioned post is good, but I think many of the desktop environments including Gnome , Kde and DFCE implement the specifications lead by freedesktop organization. One of these specifications of the Desktop Entry Specification which explains the format of the file that defines desktop icons. The Desktop Base Directory Specification explains the locations that desktop environments should look to find these files. if you are installing an rpm package then your rpm needs to include a .desktop file as it is specified by the Desktop Entry Specification and it should install it to the correct location as specified by
Desktop Base Directory Specification.