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Desktop Icons

Support for displaying desktop entries (icons) is built-in.

How do I control whether desktop icons appear?​

With the React configuration, desktop icons are displayed if you render the <DesktopEntries /> component.

How do I specify which icons appear?​

The window manager looks for .desktop files in your XDG Desktop user directory. This is usually $HOME/Desktop (~/Desktop) but is configurable as described here.

Normally, installed packages create .desktop files in a system folder; they aren't usually put into your XDG Desktop directory. This means that you should copy the .desktop files that you actually want to appear into your XDG Desktop directory to get them to appear in the window manager.

The Arch Linux wiki mentions some common locations for .desktop files, but it may vary.

What goes in a .desktop file?​

The intention is to support standard desktop files, but here are some notes about what is supported currently:

Supported properties​

  • NoDisplay and Hidden suppress the display of a .desktop file.
  • Name: The desktop icon caption
  • Type: "Application" or "Link"
  • Icon: SVG or PNG icon

For type Application:

  • Exec: Application to launch
  • Path: Working directory when launching the application

For type Link:

  • URL: URL to open