kde .desktop files $ variables

pishita · n00b Joined: 24 Sep 2002 Posts: 24

I've made a custom menu for kde using .desktop files. I mount a samba share in every user $HOME/X directory wich contains icon files.

I'm trying to show that icons in desktop files using Icon item. For example:

Icon=$HOME/X/icons/www.png

The icon is not shown cause I'm using variables in that line. It used to work in kde 3.1 but is not working in kde 3.2

any idea????

Thank you!!

sceptreofjudah · Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 5:07 pm Post subject:

KDE changed its menu system from 3.1 to 3.2. It is a great improvement, especially for creating custom global menus. I was using RedHat 9.0 at the time, but am now porting over to Gentoo. It appears that the gentoo KDE 3.2.1 is not using the same file locations as the KDE project specifies in their new documentation.

When I get it figured out for gentoo, I will post again. I hesitate to describe fully how I had KDE 3.2 menu's setup on RedHat because I'm not sure how the Gentoo port will work out. Essentially though, KDE 3.2 uses an XML file to describe the menu system globally (as root, so all users have a basic setup). Then, you copy the .desktop files you want (editing with standard and customizable definitions of "categories" in the file so that the XML defines where they are placed in the menu; e.g. KDE_BASE, EDITOR, DEVELOPMENT, REDHAT_EXTRA etc) into /usr/local/share/applications. These override the default desktop entries globally in /usr/share/applications.

When you use the menu editor as a user, it alters a similar setup in ~/.kde locally, which is used to over-ride both the custom and default global settings. The XML file is the one and only doctype of the menu system though. I will post again with better details when I have it working on gentoo. And will post the URL for documentation (not available to me where I am working today).

sceptreofjudah · Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 9:52 pm Post subject:

1) use the menu updating tool to look for legacy applications. This will put LOCAL .desktop files in ~/.kde*/share/applnk

2) create a directory /usr/local/share/applications. This is where you will place GLOBAL custom
.desktop files you design or copy which will override the global defaults.

3) the global default .desktop files have been moved by the Gentoo distribution to /usr/kde/3.2/share/applications.

4) the xml menu file is /usr/kde/3.2/etc/xdg/menus/applications.menu. (BE SURE TO BACK THIS up) I also suspect there is a way to create a custom applications.menu you place somewhere else that will over-ride this so you don't have to muck with the original.

5) desktop.directory files reside in /usr/kde/3.2/share/desktop-directories. Theoretically, according to the documentation of 3.2, you created a /usr/local/share/desktop-directories with custom files to over-ride the defaults. THIS DIDN'T WORK THOUGH FOR KDE 3.2 AND REDHAT 9.0

The machine where I stored my browser bookmarks with links to the documentation is down.

I provide them when I can