manually editing desktop menu entries

I want to edit my menu entries *without* alacarte.
I got no answer so far.
[From Google/Old threads]

It seems to be that there is nobody willing to give in his 2cents -.-
Well, I got around it:
application shortcuts are in

Code:

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~/.local/share/applications/*

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and directories are in

Code:

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~/.local/share/desktop-directories/*

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