How to edit the freedesktop menu in 2.10 from cmdline

[Ryan McDougall <NQG24419 nifty com>]

On Tue, 2005-29-03 at 20:05 -0800, Randy Bush wrote:
[snip]
> 
> > If you're not afraid of the commandline and a little XML, its pretty
> > easy customize that way until the GUI comes. If you want to know how,
> > just ask.
> 
> i hereby ask.

Well I was hoping to know more about exactly what it is you want to
do. :)

Anyways, this is just what I gather from fixing a couple things in my
own menu on FC4test1, so don't quote me as any expert. Firstly, this the
the canonical specification from the horse's mouth, and the best
resource:
http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-spec-0.9.html

If you want to totally replace the menu with a custom designed one:
(you can use existing files as templates, they're easy to read so you
should)

1. Place your custom .desktop files in /usr/share/applications/
2. Place custom .directory files in /usr/share/desktop-directories/
3. Write a custom .menu XML file in /etc/xdg/menus/

If you just want to override or add a single entry, then place a copy
(with the desired modifications) in ~/.local/share/applications/

If you want to add "legacy entries" just put the path between
<LegacyDir/>

If you want to cut an item out you can place its .desktop file between
<Filename/> and <Exclude/>

If you want to merge whole sets of different menus in, write their .menu
file then place it between <MergeFile/>

Well the above is just the basics, and probably not complete, but I
think one can easily handle it from there. :)

Cheers,
Ryan