Ubuntu – Adding custom applications to GNOME launcher

desktopgnome-shell

Looking for a utility that allows me insert an item into the list of applications that GNOME knows about.

For example:
I have downloaded Eclipse EE (I have some very special plugins that I need to work with, and those plugins don't "like" the version available in the default repository). I'm using GNOME 3, on Ubuntu 11.10. So I want to execute Eclipse w/o opening a terminal and running it.

It must be something very simple.

Best Answer

You can use Main Menu for this. If not, install it first:

sudo apt-get install alacarte

1. Open Main Menu

2. See the example

Main Menu

After that you can call your applications with name: "command_of_application".

Edit: I missed that you had asked for applications in your home directory. If so, command must be the full path of that application.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to create a custom application launcher in Gnome Shell

Try to create a eclipse.desktop file under /usr/share/applications (or ~/.local/share/applications or directly in ~/Desktop) with the following content:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Eclipse IDE
Exec=/path/to/eclipse/executable
Icon=/path/to/eclipse/icon
Type=Application
Categories=Development;

You can choose another category, too. For additional information:

Ubuntu – Duplicate icons for manually created GNOME launcher items

To save sifting through the thread mentioned by @earthmeLon, you need to do the following:

Launch the application
Fire up a terminal and run xprop WM_CLASS. Click on the window of the the application that is running with a duplicate icon.
You'll get some output like WM_CLASS(STRING) = "Navigator", "Firefox". Choose one of the classes, eg Firefox in this example
Add the class as the value of StartupWMClass in the .desktop file. For example, StartupWMClass=Firefox
Save the .desktop file, close the application and re-open it. There should now only be 1 icon in the launcher

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to create a custom application launcher in Gnome Shell

Ubuntu – Duplicate icons for manually created GNOME launcher items

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