Terminal command to add/remove .desktop files in task manager?

[luisbocanegra]

@ExXfceUser

When looking at that file, and searching for “launchers=”, it does indeed seem as if the items in the task manager are just “linking” to the actual .desktop files (it doesn’t copy them to some new cache location).

If I drag an application from the Application Launcher, the *.desktop file name as it appears in /usr/share/applications or ~/.local/share/applications is what gets added to the task manager launchers= variable.

@ExXfceUser

But this goes completely against my experiences the last few days, when modifying my .desktop files seemed to have no impact when I clicked on them (they still seemed to use the old data).

For me changing the ~/.local/share/applications/*.desktop file does reload the launcher in the task manager automatically, but for the Application Launcher favorites it changes after plasmashell restart.

And today I found this post which looks exactly like the problem you’re facing?

Is there a cache of .desktop files, and can it be easily cleared?

Hello, I recently had to modify the .desktop files for some flatpak apps in order to get their UI scaled correctly on my laptop’s display. I’ve used .desktop files before to create custom context menu items, and every time I saved those, the changes took effect instantly. However, when editing the Exec key of the .desktop file for a flatpak app, I had to restart my computer before the changes took effect. Are the .desktop files cached somewhere, and if so, is there any way of clearing or disab…

Also, for manual .desktop files dragged into the panel it creates a different kind of widget:

[Containments][576][Applets][694]
immutability=1
plugin=org.kde.plasma.icon

[Containments][576][Applets][694][Configuration]
localPath=/home/luis/.local/share/plasma_icons/Turn Off Screen.desktop
url=file:///home/luis/.local/share/applications/Turn Off Screen.desktop

So it is making a copy of the desktop file to /.local/share/plasma_icons, but isn’t updating it when the original file changes?

So unless I completely broke my installation after trying plasma 6 in the same user this looks like another bug, can you confirm the same happens to you?