Ubuntu – How to add a document shortcut to the Unity Panel

documentlauncherscriptsshortcutsunity

In Gnome 2, I used to be able to drag a particular document, for example, my_to_do_list.txt to the panel. It was quick access to my daily to do list, which opened up in Gedit.

This is the same case for when I want to add bash scripts to the unity launcher, but they opened up either in a terminal or simply loaded.

Now things seem a little harder with adding document short cuts to the unity panel launcher.

I've seen howtos for this, however, when I right click on my desktop, there is no option to create launcher. Only to create a new folder, or a new empty file.

Are there any really quick ways to make document shortcuts in the unity launcher?

Will Ubuntu be bringing in a simpler method to make document short cuts?

Best Answer

You can manually add your favourite files in the Quicklist of a Launcher-icon so that it looks like in this screenshot for LibreOffice Writer:

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I describe the way for Precise Pangolin using Ubuntu Tweak (Version 0.7.0) - using MyUnity is similar:

Open Ubuntu Tweak > QuickLists Editor > click on LibreOffice-Writer on the left side > click on the little Plus-symbol > Enter the Name of the file (it's the name that will be shown in the Quicklist) > In the Command-field enter: libreoffice --writer /Path/to/file/MyFavouriteText.odt (e.g. libreoffice --writer ~/Documents/MyFavouriteText.odt or libreoffice --writer "~/Documents/My Favourite Text.odt") > Press Save. Repeat this procedure to add further odt-files to the quicklist.

Note: I had to login again to make the behaviour of starting a favourite file from the Quicklist work properly.

Concerning LibreOffice Calc the command would be:

libreoffice --calc /Path/to/file/MyFavouriteSpreadsheet.ods

Concerning Gedit the command would be:

gedit /Path/to/file/MyFavouriteNote.txt

This solution also works when - for privacy reasons - someone has Zeitgeist totally disabled or just textfiles and/or spreadsheets excluded from activity-logging. Without Zeitgeist enabled, the Dash will show no Recently Used Files.

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