The K Desktop Environment

Chapter 7. Kicker for Admins

This chapter discusses technical details of Kicker menu storage. The information contained therein will be useful for the administrator of your system.

K Desktop Environment has been written for multiuser operating systems. If no one except you is using this system (this computer), then you are the administrator. If this system is used by more than one person, there is usually a person who has been appointed to be an administrator.

7.1. Menu Storage

The menu system is stored in .desktop files in $KDEDIR/share/applnk directory.

While many systems use /usr or /opt/kde as the KDE system dir, the most reliable information source is the system environment; the contents of the KDEDIR environment variable specifies your KDE system directory.

Changes made by an individual users are stored in .desktop files in $HOME/.kde/share/applnk/ directory. The user-home of the current user is stored in the system environment; the contents of the HOME environment variable specifies your home directory.

Any new program (new menu item) that user adds to the menu system will appear in $KDEDIR/share/applnk directory as a .desktop file. You'll find that .desktop file format is easily understandable. After studying a few of .desktop files you should be able to create your own .desktop files without the assistance of KMenuedit menu editing program.

The user can also delete a program from the system menu. This does not mean that .desktop file in $KDEDIR/share/applnk directory gets deleted. In fact, such action is rendered impossible by the operating system because of user's insufficient permissions. Instead, a new .desktop file with specific contents is created in appropriate subdirectory of $KDEDIR/.kde/share/applnk/ directory. This is the contents of the .desktop file:

   1 [Desktop Entry]
   2 Hidden=true
   3 Name=empty

This simple desktop entry serves to hide menu item that would otherwise be displayed in the menu.