Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE DESKTOP 10 SP2 - DEPLOYMENT GUIDE 08-05-2008 Deployment Manual page 269

export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/etc/opt/gnome/alacarte_system:$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS
#END SECTION ADDED BY ALACARTE
10.2.2 Customizing GNOME Menus Using
Desktop and Directory Entry Files
The way in which the GNOME Desktop implements menus enables you to do the fol-
lowing:
• Customize the menu hierarchy easily. The menu hierarchy is not based on the file
system hierarchy. You can edit a small number of files to customize the menu hier-
archy. You do not need to modify your applications or move files.
• Install applications easily. You do not need to provide information about the menu
hierarchy to applications when you install the applications.
• Configure menus so that users cannot modify them.
Menus in the GNOME Desktop use the following components:
• Desktop entry files
• Directory entry files
Desktop Entry Files
A desktop entry file is a data file that provides information about an item in a menu.
This file specifies the details for the item such as a name, a command to run, or an icon.
It also contains keywords which determine the location of the item in the menu hierarchy.
Desktop entry files have a .desktop file extension.
The following is a sample desktop entry file:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Calculator
Comment=Perform calculations
Exec=gcalctool
Icon=gcalctool.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
GNOME Configuration for Administrators 253