xdg-desktop-icon — command line tool for (un)installing icons to the desktop
xdg-desktop-icon
install [--vendor
] vendor-id
FILE
xdg-desktop-icon
uninstall [--vendor
] vendor-id
FILE
xdg-desktop-icon
{ --help
| --manual
| --version
}
The xdg-desktop-icon program can be used to install an application launcher or other file on the desktop of the current user.
An application launcher is represented by a *.desktop file. Desktop files are defined by the freedesktop.org Desktop Entry Specification. The most important aspects of *.desktop files are summarized below.
FILE
to the desktop of the current user.
FILE
can be a *.desktop file or any
other type of file.
FILE
from the desktop
of the current user.
--vendor
vendor-id
vendor-id
as a prefix when installing desktop
files.
--help
--manual
--version
An application launcher can be added to the desktop by installing a
*.desktop file. A *.desktop file consists of a
[Desktop Entry] header followed by several
Key
=Value
lines.
A *.desktop file can provide a name and description for an application
in several different languages. This is done by adding a language
code as used by LC_MESSAGES in square brackets behind the
Key
. This way one can specify different
values for the same Key
depending on the
currently selected language.
The following keys are often used:
Application Name
Generic Name
Comment
Icon File
Command Line
For a complete oveview of the *.desktop file format please visit http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards/desktop-entry-spec
An exit code of 0 indicates success while a non-zero exit code indicates failure. The following failure codes can be returned:
1
2
3
4
The company ShinyThings Inc. has developed an application named "WebMirror" and would like to add a launcher for for on the desktop. The company will use "shinythings" as its vendor id. In order to add the application to the desktop there needs to be a .desktop file for the application:
webmirror.desktop: [Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Type=Application Exec=webmirror Icon=webmirror Name=WebMirror Name[nl]=WebSpiegel
Now the xdg-desktop-icon tool can be used to add the webmirror.desktop file to the desktop:
xdg-desktop-icon install --vendor shinythings ./webmirror.desktop
To add a README file to the desktop as well, the following command can be used:
xdg-desktop-icon install ./shinythings-README