LINUX-DESKTOP-MENU-EDITORS

Which application can you use when you need to modify menu with applications on your desktop? Let’s take a look..

Linux desktops (like Gnome or KDE) usually follow freedesktop.org menu specification for their hierarchical menus with desktop applications [1]. Thanks to this, you can edit the application menu manually via files stored in directories defined by the freedesktop specification [1] like $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/menus/${XDG_MENU_PREFIX} (which will be something like /etc/xdg/menus/, /home/$USER/.config/menus/, etc. on your system). However, if you are lazy like me and prefer more easiest and comfy approach, you will choose an GUI application. The most famous one is probably an Alacarte, but I personally prefer a the one called MenuLibre. If you need to modify application menu of your desktop, now you know what to install.

MenuLibre

An advanced menu editor that provides modern features in a clean, easy-to-use interface.

https://smdavis.us/projects/menulibre/

Alacarte

A menu editor for GNOME.

https://github.com/GNOME/alacarte

Meow

An application Menu Editor for GNOME written in Scala (Java).

https://pnmougel.github.io/meow/

And that’s it. The whole purpose of this post is to have a post with “MenuLibre” name in it because I always keep forgetting that name when I’m configuring somebody else’s desktop and I need to look it up via google every time.

[1] https://specifications.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-spec-1.0.html