The use of paths in a .desktop file
In a .desktop
file, you need to use absolute and full paths. Therefore ~
is not expanded.
This is a commonly made mistake :)
Exceptions concerning icons are a.o. described here:
Icon to display in file manager, menus, etc. If the name is an
absolute path, the given file will be used. If the name is not an
absolute path, the algorithm described in the Icon Theme
Specification will be used to locate the icon.
and here:
Icon field is the icon that should be used by the launcher and
represents the application. All icons that are under the directory
/usr/share/pixmaps
don't need to have their full path specified, but
their filename without the extension. For example, if the icon file is
/usr/share/pixmaps/wallch.png
, then the Icon field should be just
'wallch'. All other icons should have their full path
specified.
More information
In a .desktop
file:
In the Icon=
line, you are allowed to use spaces:
Icon=/home/jacob/Thema/icon/some folder/some icon.png
is fine.
However
In the Exec=
line, you are not allowed to use spaces, unless in case of an argument. In all other cases, you need to quote the path steps with a space:
Exec=/home/jacob/Bureaublad/some folder/application
will fail, while
Exec="/home/jacob/Bureaublad/some folder/application"
or
Exec=/home/jacob/Bureaublad/"some folder"/application
will work fine