<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/" xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its" type="topic" style="task" id="dev-launching-desktop" xml:lang="ja">

  <info>

    <link type="next" xref="dev-launching-icons"/>

    <revision version="0.1" date="2014-01-28" status="draft"/>

    <credit type="author">

      <name>David King</name>

      <email its:translate="no">davidk@gnome.org</email>

      <years>2014</years>

    </credit>

    <include xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" href="cc-by-sa-3-0.xml"/>

  </info>

  <title>Install a desktop file</title>

  <links type="series" style="floatend">

    <title>Launch your application</title>

  </links>

  
Write and install a desktop file so that users can discover and launch

  your application.

  
GNOME uses the

  <link href="http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/index.html">freedesktop.org

  Desktop Entry</link> and

  <link href="http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/">Desktop

  Menu specifications</link> to describe application launchers. Installing a

  desktop file is the standard way to register your application with GNOME and

  other desktops.

  
A desktop file lists your application binary, name and type, and can also

  list an icon, description and several other pieces of information about

  launching an application.

  
For a hypothetical application <app>My Application</app>, a desktop file

  would look as follows:

  <example>

    <listing>

      <title><file>myapplication.desktop</file></title>

[Desktop Entry]

Name=My Application

Exec=myapplication

Type=Application

Icon=myapplication

Comment=Do the thing that the application does

Categories=GTK;GNOME;Utility;

    </listing>

  </example>

  
The [Desktop Entry] line indicates that this is a desktop

  file. It is followed by keys, which describe the application launcher. The

  Name key is the human-readable name of the application, to be

  shown in the UI. The application binary is listed in the Exec

  key, either the complete path or a binary that is looked up in the

  PATH. The last required key is the Type, which for

  applications is always Application. Alternative types are listed

  in the desktop entry specification.

  
Other fields in the desktop file are optional, but recommended.

  Applications should install an icon, and list the name of the icon (excluding

  the extension) in the Icon key. The Comment is a

  brief description of the application. To help users when browsing

  applications, the Categories key should be populated with a

  list of categories, separated by a semicolon, from the Desktop Menu

  Specification.

  
There are several other keys that can be added to desktop files, which are

  listed and described in the Desktop Entry Specification.

</page>