<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<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="uk">
<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>
<p>Write and install a desktop file so that users can discover and launch
your application.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>For a hypothetical application <app>My Application</app>, a desktop file
would look as follows:</p>
<example>
<listing>
<title><file>myapplication.desktop</file></title>
<code>[Desktop Entry]
Name=My Application
Exec=myapplication
Type=Application
Icon=myapplication
Comment=Do the thing that the application does
Categories=GTK;GNOME;Utility;</code>
</listing>
</example>
<p>The <code>[Desktop Entry]</code> line indicates that this is a desktop
file. It is followed by keys, which describe the application launcher. The
<code>Name</code> key is the human-readable name of the application, to be
shown in the UI. The application binary is listed in the <code>Exec</code>
key, either the complete path or a binary that is looked up in the
<code>PATH</code>. The last required key is the <code>Type</code>, which for
applications is always <code>Application</code>. Alternative types are listed
in the desktop entry specification.</p>
<p>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 <code>Icon</code> key. The <code>Comment</code> is a
brief description of the application. To help users when browsing
applications, the <code>Categories</code> key should be populated with a
list of categories, separated by a semicolon, from the Desktop Menu
Specification.</p>
<p>There are several other keys that can be added to desktop files, which are
listed and described in the Desktop Entry Specification.</p>
</page>