On Tue, 2003-02-18 at 21:39, michael lewis wrote:
> i recently downloaded a program to my RH 8.0.  Right now I can only run this 
> by typing it into the terminal.  Is there some way I can put an icon of this 
> progrm onto the desktop or onto the panel or even into the little "red hat" 
> (start button)?

Thanks for asking this.  It let me into a deep mission of discovery in
to the freedesktop specifications (www.freedesktop.org).  What I found
is this:

All applications have ".desktop" entries in /usr/share/applications. 
Using a "vfolder" specification, the desktop (gnome or kde) arranges the
apps into categories (sub-menus), according to the suggestions of the
.desktop file.

Here's what I did:

1. create a new launcher on the desktop by right-clicking anywhere on
the background and selecting "New Launcher." Set it up the way you want
with icon, program path, etc.
2. load gedit and edit the desktop file.  (it's in
$HOME/.gnome-desktop/<shortcutname>.desktop.
3.  Add a line to the end of the file:
Categories=cat1;cat2;cat3;etc;

Where the categories come from the specifications at
http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu/draft/menu-spec/menu-spec.html#LEGACY-HIERARCHIES

4.  If you want the item to appear on the main redhat menu (not extras),
add "X-Red-Hat-Base;" to the categories.  Otherwise redhat will
certainly place it on the extras menu.

Here's my example testing.desktop file:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Exec=gedit
TryExec=
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/gnome-color-browser.png
X-GNOME-DocPath=
Terminal=false
Name[en_US]=testing
GenericName[en_US]=
Comment[en_US]=
Categories=Application;Utility;X-Red-Hat-Base;

Check how the other .desktop entries do categories and you'll be able to
move things around.  For example, I just moved mplayer, gaim, and galeon
to the main redhat menu by changing the "X-Red-Hat-Extra;" category to
"X-Red-Hat-Base;" in each desktop file.

This is not as slick as a gui menu editor, but it works.  In the future,
gnome will probably give you more control over the vfolders that define
the menu structure, and I hope an easier way to change the categories on
each entry to move it between extras and main.

There is also a $home/something dir (don't know what it is) that you can
put .desktop files into to that will get merged into the menu.  If
anyone knows this, please post it.

cheers,
Michael


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