Desktop Entry Specification: Add new ExecArg key

Manuel Schneider manuelschneid3r at gmail.com
Mon Jul 15 14:13:19 UTC 2024


Afaik there is no way to identify a desktop entry as a terminal emulator. I
propose the addition of a new key, ExecArg, to the specification. This key
would identify an application as a terminal emulator and provide the
necessary "execute arguments" to be appended to the commandline specified
in the Exec key to run the remainder of the command line in the terminal.

Example:

[Desktop Entry]
Exec=xterm
ExecArg=-e
[…]

The rationale should be obvious.

This would be beneficial for all kinds of applications (IDEs, file
managers, launchers, …) that want to provide user configured terminal
execution and therefore need a way to find and run installed terminals
without the need implement heuristics and hardcode execute arguments (which
is doomed to fail anyway given the breaking evolution of commandline
interfaces and the fact that distributions have different names for
terminal executables).

A related proposal can be found here
<https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/terminal-wg/specifications/-/merge_requests/3>.
It is about standardizing the way users can configure a systemwide default
terminal. However this proposal is not that broad and debatable and the
required changes are minimal.

Regards,

Manuel Schneider
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