Freedesktop
Utilities
xdg-settings — get various settings from the desktop environment
xdg-settings get default-web-browser
https://portland.freedesktop.org/doc/xdg-settings.html
xdg-mime – command line tool for querying information about file type handling and adding descriptions for new file types
xdg-mime query default inode/directory
Unsorted
Desktop files
Directories
global | /usr/share/applications |
user | $HOME/.local/share/applications |
flatpak global | /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications |
flatpak user | $HOME/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/applications |
Run a .desktop file from terminal
gtk-launch <file>
Where <file>
is the name of the .desktop
file with or without the .desktop
part. The name must not include the full path.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/5172/running-a-desktop-file-in-the-terminal
Set a variable in a desktop file
Exec=env GDK_SCALE=2 mediathekview
https://askubuntu.com/questions/144968/set-variable-in-desktop-file
XDG user directories
xdg-user-dirs is a tool to help manage “well known” user directories like the desktop folder and the music folder. It also handles localization (i.e. translation) of the filenames.
# This file is written by xdg-user-dirs-update
# If you want to change or add directories, just edit the line you're
# interested in. All local changes will be retained on the next run.
# Format is XDG_xxx_DIR="$HOME/yyy", where yyy is a shell-escaped
# homedir-relative path, or XDG_xxx_DIR="/yyy", where /yyy is an
# absolute path. No other format is supported.
#
XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/Templates"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/Public"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Videos"