Ubuntu – New App doesn’t appear in Unity dash

launcherunityunity-dash

I have copied an executable in /usr/bin a program that I'd like to use.

Of course I can launch it with the command line. However it doesn't appear in Unity when I open the dash, and I would like to add it.

How is it possible ?

Best Answer

You have to create a description, in a .desktop file, under the ~/.local/share/applications directory.

E.g. newprog.desktop :

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=/usr/bin/NEWPROG
Hidden=false
Name=My-Fancy-Name
Comment=Something I never want to say :-)

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Applications don’t appear in the Dash (14.04)

As it is only constrained to your user account, it must have something to do with your user.

Maybe one of the .desktop files in your home folder is tripping the launcher up? Can you try moving the files in these folders all somewhere else:

/home/<youruser>/.gnome/apps/
/home/<youruser>/.local/usr/share/applications/

e.g.

$ mkdir backup_local
$ mkdir backup_gnome
$ mv .local/share/applications/*.desktop backup_local/
$ mv .gnome/apps/*.desktop backup_gnome/

Then logout, login and see if it changed anything? You can always move them back in if it didn't help. If it did help, try moving them in one by one to which file was the culprit.

EDIT: You can find out which one was malformed:

Install the desktop-file-utils package:

sudo apt-get install desktop-file-utils

Check each of the .desktop files for validity using desktop-file-validate:
```
desktop-file-validate .local/share/applications/*.desktop
desktop-file-validate .gnome/apps/*.desktop
```
Or of course at the different location if you already moved it. It will print nothing if all files are OK. If any of the files are malformed, it will print one error message per line.

You might also want to check the other desktop files for good measure:
```
desktop-file-validate /usr/share/applications/*.desktop
```

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Applications don’t appear in the Dash (14.04)

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