Additional applications actions | Desktop Entry Specification

11 Additional applications actions #

Desktop entries of type Application can include one or more actions. An action represents an additional way to invoke the application. Application launchers should expose them to the user (for example, as a submenu) within the context of the application. This is used to build so called "Quicklists" or "Jumplists".

11.1 Action identifier #

Each action is identified by a string, following the same format as key names (see Section 3.3, “Entries”). Each identifier is associated with an action group that must be present in the .desktop file. The action group is a group named Desktop Action %s, where %s is the action identifier.

It is not valid to have an action group for an action identifier not mentioned in the Actions key. Such an action group must be ignored by implementors.

11.2 Action keys #

The following keys are supported within each action group. If a REQUIRED key is not present in an action group, then the implementor should ignore this action.

Table 3: Action Specific Keys #

Key	Description	Value Type	REQ?
`Name`	Label that will be shown to the user. Since actions are always shown in the context of a specific application (that is, as a submenu of a launcher), this only needs to be unambiguous within one application and should not include the application name.	localestring	YES
`Icon`	Icon to be shown together with the action. If the name is an absolute path, the given file will be used. If the name is not an absolute path, the algorithm described in the Icon Theme Specification (http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards/icon-theme-spec) will be used to locate the icon. Implementations may choose to ignore it.	iconstring	NO
`Exec`	Program to execute for this action, possibly with arguments. See the `Exec` key for details on how this key works. The `Exec` key is required if `DBusActivatable` is not set to `true` in the main desktop entry group. Even if `DBusActivatable` is `true`, `Exec` should be specified for compatibility with implementations that do not understand `DBusActivatable`.	string	NO

11.3 Implementation notes #

Application actions should be supported by implementors. However, in case they are not supported, implementors can simply ignore the Actions key and the associated Desktop Action action groups, and keep using the Desktop Entry group: the primary way to describe and invoke the application is through the Name, Icon and Exec keys from the Desktop Entry group.

It is not expected that other desktop components showing application lists (software installers, for instance) will provide any user interface for these actions. Therefore applications must only include actions that make sense as general launchers.