How does a .desktop file differ from say a “symbolic link”?
With OpenSuse 11.1 (Kde 4.1.3), if I right click in say Dolphin I can create a new “Link to URL”. If I understand correctly this in turns crates a .desktop file instead of a symbolic link. The effect seems the same - I can click on the .desktop file to start the app. Is this new .desktop file method somehow better than using traditional symbolic links?
I wanted to add a link to Dolphin to the Desktop Panel. It seems if I right click on the panel and choose “Add Widgte/Applet” (Im using a German version -“Miniprogram hinzufügen” - so Im not certain how these are called in English), Dolphin is not one of the choices. The only hack I could think of was to add it to QuickLaunch (but the icon is too small then).
Is it not possible to add links to applications (or even files/urls with associated apps) to the Desktop panel (if theyre not exposed a “wigets/applets” which say Firefox and Dolphin dont seem to be) ?
First ‘Unlock Widgets’ (via right-click on the desktop). Next from the the openSUSE Kickoff menu, navigate to the relevant application, right-click, and choose ‘Add to Panel’, or alternatively just drag and drop the icon onto the desktop. Make sure you ‘Lock Widgets’ when done.
>> First ‘Unlock Widgets’… Make sure you ‘Lock Widgets’ when done.
Thanks very much for the suggestion. That worked fine.
It seems strange (and somewhat akward) though that I can only do this if the apps are in the start menu (and that the menu is set to Kickoff style), and not possible when looking at a link or an app in eg Dolphin.
Thanks. It seems that the .desktop entries are designed for something else (or more general at least). I recall it used to be possible to right click in the window manager and choose “create symbolic link” (or something similar). Im wondering that this isnt still possible.