Desktop Menu Specification

This document defines how to construct a user-visible hierarchy of applications, typically displayed as a menu. It allows third-party software to add menu items that work for all desktops, and allows system administrators to edit menus in a way that affects all desktops.

Mailing list

Discussion of this specification should occur on xdg.

Git

The specification is maintained in the xdg-specs git repository. See Getting Involved for more on how to contribute.

Spec

• Latest version
• Version 1.0 - html (one page) - html (multiple pages) - xml
• Version 0.9 - html (one page) - html (multiple pages) - xml
• Version 0.8 - html (one page) - html (multiple pages) - xml
• Version 0.7 - html (one page) - html (multiple pages) - xml

See Also

The xdg-utils package is a useful implementation of this specification. It provides simple interfaces to create menu entries or desktop icons on a Free Desktop. xdg-utils should save a typical application developer considerable time and heartburn.