Editing firefox.desktop

Brian Cluff brian at snaptek.com
Mon Mar 22 21:35:10 MST 2021


That's what we are talking about.  You can put your own firefox.desktop 
file in ~/.local/share/applications/ and it will supersede the package 
installed version of the file.  I've found just about everything in 
linux has a similar directory hierarchy so you have control over a 
complete system and/or individual program by putting alternative 
versions of config files in their proper places.

According to the spec 
(https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/index.html) 
the order that the .desktop files are searched for is in $XDG_DATA_DIRS 
and the first one found is used.

Brian Cluff

On 3/22/21 6:40 PM, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> You know, I fscking hate this between distros, but for arch on mine, 
> it's /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop, and every time I update 
> it resets to defaults I hate.  I keep a copy of firefox.desktop as I 
> need a menu to create a "choose profile" menu for firefox when I need 
> many profiles for different customers, all with their own needs like 
> different google and microsith profiles for orfice365.  Make sure 
> you're hitting the right file for the distro as different from 
> deb/ubuntu/mint.
>
> I'd say copy a working entry outside where you find the *.desktop 
> files, and just replace what works in a remote location to upgrade 
> when your dist.  Firefox is the only thing to overwrite and piss me 
> off every time that I know to copy this when I update.  I normally 
> just right click and do "Choose profile" for firefox for the plethora 
> of profiles, adding that option to my firefox.desktop file, but 
> apparently I'm the only person to do this, so shenanigans needed.  
> Same as yours I presume.  Start with a working one at least.
>
> I need to play with this some, as I'd love to relaunch my 6-7 firefox 
> profiles automatically, and not screw with my options to launch 
> manually.  I'm sure there are easier ways to do this normally, but I'm 
> lazy to do so.  /me shrugs
>
> -mb
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 11:31 AM Steve B via PLUG-discuss 
> <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org 
> <mailto:plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org>> wrote:
>
>     Thank you. The original goal was to add it to the menu in Pop OS.
>     I'll look again, but don't recall seeing it after I created it in
>     ~/.local/share/applications. Do I need to use "--register-app" to
>     add it, or should it just show up?
>
>     On Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 10:30 PM Brian Cluff via PLUG-discuss
>     <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org
>     <mailto:plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org>> wrote:
>
>         A desktop file is standardized configuration file for Linux
>         desktops that describe how to represent a program in the menus
>         (complete with multiple language support), and how to launch
>         it. So you can't just launch it directly because it doesn't
>         mean anything to the command line.  It should however be
>         showing up in your menus now and so you can put it in your
>         favorites and easily launch it that way.
>
>         That being cause, you can kinda turn it into an executable by
>         adding something like the following to the very top of the
>         desktop file:
>         #!/usr/bin/kioclient5 exec
>
>         That will tell the system to execute the desktop file with
>         kioclient... of course you need to be running KDE for that to
>         work correctly.  I'm not sure what the GNOME equivalent of
>         that command is.
>
>         Personally I would just pretty alt+F2 or alt+space may work as
>         well and just start to type  "Sandboxed Web Browser" and you
>         may only have to type Sand or so before you can press enter
>         and have it launch.
>
>         Alternatives to starting it from the command line:
>         Create a file called sandfox in /usr/local/bin/ and put the
>         following into it.
>         #!/bin/bash
>         /usr/bin/firejail --apparmor firefox $@
>
>         Then set it to be executable and then you can execute sandfox
>         from anywhere.
>
>         You could also set and alias with:
>         alias sandfox="/usr/bin/firejail --apparmor firefox"
>
>         That will allow you to type sandfox and internally it will
>         replace that with "/usr/bin/firejail --apparmor firefox". 
>         That should also work in most places equally well, but only
>         for your username.
>         That's a one shot way of making that available.  If you want
>         it to be permanent you'll need to add that line to your
>         .bashrc file with:
>         echo alias sandfox='"/usr/bin/firejail --apparmor firefox"'
>         >>~/.bashrc
>
>         I can't remember what your original goals were, so I hope the
>         above isn't completely shooting the dark.
>
>         Brian Cluff
>
>         On 3/19/21 10:25 PM, Steve B via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>>         I took Brian's recommendation and created a file in
>>         ~/.local/share/applications called sandfox.desktop. Contents
>>         of that file are:
>>
>>         [Desktop Entry]
>>         Encoding=UTF-8
>>         Type=Application
>>         Icon=/home/steve/Pictures/firejailed_firefox128.png
>>         Exec=/usr/bin/firejail --apparmor firefox
>>         Name=Sandboxed Web Browser
>>         Terminal=false
>>
>>         I have it set to executable but when i try to run it
>>         "./sandfox.desktop" I get the error:
>>         ./sandfox.desktop: line 1: [Desktop: command not found
>>         ./sandfox.desktop: line 5: --apparmor: command not found
>>         ./sandfox.desktop: line 6: Web: command not found
>>
>>         Is my file misconfigured or what do I not have correct?
>>
>>
>>
>>         On Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 5:47 PM Brian Cluff via PLUG-discuss
>>         <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org
>>         <mailto:plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org>> wrote:
>>
>>             Under debian based distros, overriding an overwrite of
>>             ANY installed file is easily done.
>>             There's a really cool tool called dpkg-divert that the
>>             system uses to take whatever files would normally be
>>             installed and steer them into a different place so that
>>             you can put your own version of the file in the same
>>             place without fear of it going away on the next update.
>>
>>             Just do:
>>             dpkg-divert --add --rename
>>             /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop
>>
>>             In this case, that would be the overkill and less correct
>>             way of handing the problem.  A better way would be to put
>>             your own version of the firefox.desktop into certain
>>             directories and that cause it to override the system
>>             version of the config.  Put them in
>>             ~/.local/share/applications/ to change an individual user
>>             and|| /usr/local/share/applications/ to effect every user
>>             on the system.
>>
>>             Brian Cluff
>>
>>
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