shell-things/local/share/applications/README.md

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# Custom app menu entries

These can be used for either `~/.local/share/applications` or
`/usr/local/share/applications` which are read by graphical desktop
environments for their app menus and default applications selections.

Additionally `~/.config/autostart` or `/etc/xdg/autostart` could symlink here
so graphical desktop environments started the apps on login.

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- [`a-*.desktop`](#a-desktop)
- [Refreshing the menus](#refreshing-the-menus)
- [Default applications](#default-applications)

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## `a-*.desktop`

These files are companions to my script repos `bash/usr-local-bin/*` belonging
to `/usr/local/share/applications` and are named so to avoid masking package
manager. They have clearly different names such as using all caps.

Apparently one can also have subdirectories in
`/usr/local/share/applications/` and `~/.local/share/applications/` making
life easier.

## Refreshing the menus

```bash
update-desktop-database -v ~/.local/share/applications
sudo update-desktop-database -v /usr/local/share/applications
```

## Default applications

[Codium documentation](https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/1.89.1.24130/docs/index.md#how-do-i-fix-the-default-file-manager-linux)
points out the existence of `~/.config/mimeapps.list` and gives these two
examples:

```toml
[Default Applications]
inode/directory=org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop;
```

```bash
% grep directory /usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache
inode/directory=codium.desktop
org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop
```

TODO: I wonder if it needs an `update-desktop-database` or similar though.