2.1. Introduction to Menus

The way in which GNOME implements menus in the desktop enables you to do the following:

  • Customize the menu hierarchy easily. The menu hierarchy is not based on the file system hierarchy. You can edit a small number of files to customize the menu hierarchy. You do not need to modify your applications or move files.

  • Install applications easily. You do not need to provide information about the menu hierarchy to applications when you install the applications.

  • Configure menus so that users cannot modify the menus.

Menus in the GNOME desktop use the following components:

  • File abstraction layer

  • Vfolders

  • Desktop entry files

  • Directory entry files