Adding a Menu Item to the Application Menu

Novell Cool Solutions: Tip
By Richard Holder

Digg This - Slashdot This Posted: 14 Sep 2006

Problem:

You've installed a new application to SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 but it did not use "Install Software", how do you add it to the application menu?

Solution:

Create a .desktop file and place it in /usr/share/applications directory.

How it's done:

I used the following to create a new menu item for Eclipse, an application installed on my machine by unzipping files.

Open a terminal window and login as Root using the command "su", enter your root password.

To ensure I had the correct format, I opened an existing .desktop file in gedit: #gedit /usr/share/applications/gwclient.desktop

I modified the entry so that only the following remained:

[Desktop Entry] 
Name=Eclipse 
Comment=Eclipse 
GenericName=Eclipse 
Exec=/home/rholder/eclipse/eclipse <-- location of eclipse executable 
Icon= 
Terminal=0 
Type=Application 
Categories=Application;Development; 0 <-- Show option in both New Applications and Development 

After saving, the menu option should appear in a few seconds.

Environment:

SLED10, GEDIT, Terminal window

Novell Cool Solutions (corporate web communities) are produced by WebWise Solutions. www.webwiseone.com