Freedesktop Information

The application installers include support for the freedesktop.org specifications. This support allows the installer to create menu entries and filetype/mimetype associations on compatible X window managers.

Installing the shared mime database and desktop file utils from freedesktop.org is recommended, but not an absolute requirement.

However, not all environments support the specification or support it completely. This is further complicated by the fact that the specifications are still a work in progress and are being continually updated and revised.

Even on desktops that do support the specifiation, the window manager menu may be replaced by a distribution specific menu to provide familiarity among different window managers. You may be able to select the default window manager menu, but the details of this process are distribution specific. On Mandrake Linux you can select the default KDE/Gnome menu from the menudrake tool.

Therefore your level of success in using the installers for this purpose may vary.

Here are some pictures of what the installer file/mime association and menu creation dialogs look like.

Mimetype association dialog

Menu entry creation dialog

The mimetype association dialog allows you to select the types of files opened with the application (in this case, torrent files using Retriever). The menu dialog allows you to select which menu categories the application link will appear in.

I've only successfully used this system with KDE 3.2 (menu and file associations) and Xfce4.2beta2 (menu support only). It does not work with Gnome, Enlightenment, WindowMaker or IceWM, at least the versions I have tried. Please feel free to let me know of your success (or failure) using different window managers or distributions by sending an email to hayden@halogenware.com.