How to create a new category in the GNOME menu?

Question

I want to create a custom category menu. How can I do that?

For example, I want to create a category menu named "Halogen" like Accessories, Games, Graphics, Internet..etc

Answer 1

1. Need to write an XML .menu file to be installed in /etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged/

   Example /etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged/hamradio.menu

   <!DOCTYPE Menu PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD Menu 1.0//EN"
    "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu-spec/1.0/menu.dtd">
   <Menu>
     <Name>Applications</Name>
     <Menu>
       <Name>Hamradio</Name>
       <Directory>HamRadio.directory</Directory>
       <Include>
           <Category>HamRadio</Category>
       </Include>
     </Menu> <!-- End hamradio -->
   </Menu>
   

2. A .directory file to be install in /usr/share/desktop-directories/

   Example /usr/share/desktop-directories/HamRadio.directory ([...] I removed some lines)

   [Desktop Entry]
   Type=Directory
   Encoding=UTF-8
   Name=Hamradio
   Name[bg]=Любителско радио
   Name[ca]=Radioaficionat
   Name[cs]=Amatérské rádio
   [...]
   Name[vi]=Truyền thành tài tử
   Name[zh_CN]=业余无线电
   Name[zh_TW]=業餘無線電
   Icon=CQ.png
   

3. Add category to Categories= in application .desktop file and should be install in /usr/share/applications/

Reference: Freedesktop Menu Specification

Answer 2

Based on info from http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/05/add-categories-to-gnome-shell-dashboard and http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Using_GNOME/Application_menus

You need to open the dconf Editor (command dc)

From there navigate to org > gnome > shell You should see an entry called "app-folder-categories". Double click on this and add/remove categories as you desire.

You can also use the gsettings tool

gsettings get org.gnome.shell.app-folder-categories

would should you the current categories and you can use the set command write a new value (which would be a comma separated list of your categories.

To place you software into the new category you will need to edit the .desktop launcher files located in /usr/share/applications/ . There should be one for each application, if you open one in your editor you should see an entry called "Categories" and you can add/remove categories (including the one you just created).

Answer 3

This extension should do what you want: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1217/appfolders-manager/