Add a new Xfce menu item

If you have installed a new application in your system that is not maintained by the system package manager (like aptitude, portage, yum, packman, etc), then maybe you have to add a new Xfce menu item in the system menu.

So here is what you have to do to add a new menu entry to the Xfce menus:

• create a new empty file in the ~/.local/share/application folder named .desktop

• edit that file to looks like the one below:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;
Name=Disk Usage Analyzer
Comment=Disk usage analyzer
Exec=baobab
Icon=/usr/share/icons/OSX_Aluminium/128x128/apps/baobab.png
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true

The Name represents the caption of your menu entry. The Exec represents the name/full-path of your file that is represented by the menu entry. Note that Category is the place where your menu will be added. There is a list of the well-known categories for the standard X Windows system desktops so if you want to add your menu to those standard categories (such Accessories, Internet, Office, System, etc) the you should provide the standard category name. More info can be found at Xfce Wiki and Desktop Menu Specification web page of freedesktop.org. To load immediately your new menu entry then reload the Xfce desktop manager with:

xfdesktop --reload