How do you add new application to this “All Applications” menu (and optionally to some of categories) without using GUI “Edit Applications” menu (named “KDE Menu Editor”)?

It may sound like a simple task but I’ve already spent several hours on this with no success.

When you download an app instead of getting it from package manager, you may want to add it to Application Launcher so it will not get lost.

I have myapp.AppImage file, it’s working, I’ve created .desktop file and tried to place it into some system directories (e.g. ~/.local/share/applications/myapp.desktop) or calling xdg-desktop-menu install myfile.desktop but to no avail. New app doesn’t appear in All Applications or specified category, it appears only as a search result, when you start typing its name.

Creating new menu items with GUI “KDE Menu Editor” affects “/home/user/.config/menus/applications-kmenuedit.menu” XML file, but this file doesn’t look like it should be edited manually.

Can you please try adding custom executable to this menu yourself and see if you will succeed? Am I trying to do something quirky and is wrong about expecting this task to be simple?

My system is Kubuntu 26.04, KDE Plasma 6.6.6.

  • podbrushkin@mander.xyzOP
    38·
    16 hours ago

    Ok, finally I’ve found solution! Obviously I found it 0.0001 seconds after I publicly asked this question.

    Problem is that “Games” menu in mentioned /home/user/.config/menus/applications-kmenuedit.menu XML file does not contain a <Merge type="files"/> tag, that’s why KDE Kickoff Application Menu was ignoring .desktop files if they belong to this category. And every sample .desktop file I’ve created probably belonged to Games category.

    I changed this XML file to be like this:

    <Menu>
  <Name>Games</Name>
  <Include/>
  <Exclude>
   <Filename>Quake.desktop</Filename>
  </Exclude>
  <Layout>
   <Merge type="menus"/>
   <Merge type="files"/>

    Now it seems like everything works as expected. I don’t understand why it doesn’t work by default.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      31·
      14 hours ago

      Also, btw, you’re the best kind of question asker, because you figured out an obscure problem and then provided the answer for the rest of us. I learned something and bookmarked this thread in case I ever run into such a problem and forgot how to fix it. Cheers and thanks, mate.

      • db2@lemmy.world
        3·
        13 hours ago

        This is still the internet, three years from now when you come back that and only that comment will have been deleted.

        • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          2·
          12 hours ago

          Possibly, but I tend to think that only happened on reddit due to corporate influence and trying to use that as a way to take a stand against a corporation. I think the same is unlikely to happen on smaller sites, more likely the whole site could be gone. Anyway, counterpoint is MetaFilter, which has been around since 1999 and you can find comments from waaaaaaaaaaay back very easily, it’s all indexed for searching quite well.