Desktop Entry Standard

Preston Brown

Jonathan Blandford

Owen Taylor


Table of Contents
Introduction
Basic format of the file
Possible value types
Recognized desktop entry keys
Character set encoding of the file
List of valid Exec parameter variables
Detailed discussion of supporting MIME types
Extending the format
Example Desktop Entry File
The Legacy-Mixed encoding

Introduction

Both the KDE and GNOME desktop environments have adopted a similar format for "desktop entries," or configuration files describing how a particular program is to be launched, how it appears in menus, etc. It is to the larger community's benefit that a unified standard be agreed upon by all parties such that interoperation between the two environments, and indeed any additional environments that implement the specification, becomes simpler.