GenericName

Generic name of the application, for example "Web Browser"

When there are multiple applications doing the same thing (Web Browser) the application displaying the desktop entries can use the GenericName to group the similar items in some other way. For example, the following two menu structures could be possible for the same set of applications.

Internet                                 Internet
  +-- Epiphany (Web Browser)               +-- Liferea Feed Reader
  +-- Galeon (Web Browser)                 +-- Pan
  +-- Liferea Feed Reader                  +-- Web Bookmarks
  +-- Mozilla (Web Browser)                +-- Web Browser
  +-- Pan                                       +-- Epiphany
  +-- Web Bookmarks                             +-- Galeon
                                                +-- Mozilla

Too bad gnome-panel doesn't seem to be using GenericName for anything :-/

http://freedesktop.org/Standards/desktop-entry-spec