How to install a .desktop file to the home folder?

[Hongli Lai <h lai chello nl>]

What is the correct way to install a .desktop file to the home folder?
- On Fedora Core 1 (GNOME 2.4), I just copy a file to 
~/.gnome2/vfolders/applications.
- The above doesn't always work on GARNOME 2.4. Sometimes I have to 
restart the panel before the menu item is detected. Others say it 
doesn't work at all even if they restart the panel.
- Copying to ~/.gnome2/vfolders/applications doesn't work *at all* on 
GARNOME 2.6, unless I add 
<ItemDir>~/.gnome2/vfolders/applications</ItemDir> to 
etc/gnome-vfs-2.0/application-all-users.vfolder-info or something
- Someone on IRC suggested me to write to applications-all-users:///, 
but this doesn't work on Fedora because RedHat disabled menu editing.
- Yes I tried copying to ~/.local/share/applications. It doesn't work, 
not even after I set XDG_DATA_DIRS.

So, what is the correct way to install a .desktop file to the home 
folder? Is there a correct way at all?