DESKTOPTOJSON(8)

💅 DESKINTOJSON... wait, desktoptojson — NAME ✨

okay bestie, say hi to desktoptojson — the KDE Frameworks: KService little icon that converts a .desktop file to a .json file. that's it, that's the job, and it does it flawlessly 💖

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

desktoptojson --input DESKTOP-FILE --output JSON-FILE

desktoptojson {--version | --help}

like. two modes. do the conversion, or ask it who it is. simple as that 🎀

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so here's the lore, bestie 👑 the KService framework uses the info sitting inside .desktop files to locate services, including plugins for Qt5-based applications and libraries. but the Qt5 plugin system? it doesn't do .desktop files at all — it uses JSON data embedded in the plugin itself 😭

and that is literally the whole reason desktoptojson exists: it lets the info in a .desktop file also be used as the embedded data for a Qt5 plugin, by converting the .desktop file entries into JSON data. iconic behavior, truly 🫶

now, the generated JSON data is a JSON object that maps the entries from the [Desktop Entry] group of the .desktop file. any other groups? ignored. not invited to the party 🙈

most entries just get converted to JSON strings, but some entries (like Hidden and X-KDE-PluginInfo-EnabledByDefault) are known to be boolean values and get converted as such. and similarly, some entries (like X-KDE-ServiceTypes and X-KDE-PluginInfo-Depends) are always converted to arrays of strings. no cap 💯

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🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

• --input DESKTOP-FILE — the .desktop file to convert. the source material, the moment, the muse 💖
• --output JSON-FILE — the file to write the generated JSON data to. where the magic lands ✨
• --help — show a brief help text. a lil recap for when you forgot 🎀
• --version — show version information. identity check 🪞

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🌈 USAGE 🌈

okay so most users of this utility are gonna be using the CMake macro kservice_desktop_to_json as part of the process of building a plugin. it's giving automation, it's giving build-system energy 🧚

add_library(myplugin MODULE ${myplugin_SRCS})
kservice_desktop_to_json(myplugin myplugin.desktop)

this will produce the JSON file myplugin.json, which can be referenced from the K_PLUGIN_FACTORY_WITH_JSON or Q_PLUGIN_METADATA macros. slay 💅

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💀 BUGS 💀

found something cursed? please use KDE's bugtracker[1] to report bugs. they wanna know, fr fr 🙏

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

• Scarlett Clark <scarlett@scarlettgatelyclark.com>
  • wrote the original documentation. the blueprint, the blueprint-er 💜
• Alex Merry <alexmerry@kde.org>
  • edited the documentation. the glow-up era ✨

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📝 NOTES 📝

1. KDE's bugtracker https://bugs.kde.org

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🥰 this was KDE Frameworks Frameworks 5.0, dated 2014-04-02, living under section 8 of the manual — DESKTOPTOJSON(8), periodt. go convert something cute 💖🦋🌸