On Tue, May 06, 2014 at 07:13:20PM +0200, Enrico Forestieri wrote: > > But you don't have to click those files. Rather, you should put them in > ~/.local/share/applications, /usr/local/share/applications or > /usr/share/applications (precedence is from left to right) > and then maybe issue some commands. In Debian you should issue the command > update-desktop-database, so it should be the same in Ubuntu.
Just to be more explicit. Among other things, those files tell the desktop environment whether to show an application in the menus and in what category. They also state what mime types the application can handle, such that it will proposed when you choose "Open with..." or similar menu entries. There is also a mechanism to state what is the default application (or, better, the default .desktop file) that handles a specific mime type, and the application mentioned in that file is run when a file with a given associated mime-type is clicked. -- Enrico
