Ubuntu – Restoring .desktop shortcut functionality broken by 18 > 20 upgrade

desktopshortcuts

All references to this problem (that I have found thus far) say in effect "just copy the .desktop file to the desktop, enable 'Allow Launching', and everything will be great!"

Indeed, that restores the app launch capability of the shortcut. But it also takes all the shortcut files out of the nice, organized hierarchical, categorized folders where they once lived and places them in one big unorganized bucket on the desktop, such that the desktop looks like a amateurish mess created by a long string of Windows install programs run by a WIN user that always accepts all defaults.

How can this be fixed? Specifically, how can all user shortcuts be re-enables IN SITU, not when dragged onto the desktop?

EXAMPLE – I've got an "Engineering" folder on my desktop. It's five levels deep, about 35 folders total, with all folders at all levels full of .desktop files. That's what I want to fix. Ditto "Projects" and "Reference."

And if it can't be fixed, why was this new Gnome "feature" created? What was gained by breaking all user shortcuts that aren't on the desktop?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Best Answer

The support for link-type desktop files was removed in May 2018 from Nautilus version 3.27.4 and later. The Nautilus developers have been pretty clear this removal is permanent (read this bug report for details) so at this point your options are

maintain your own fork of Nautilus,
use a version of Nautilus prior to 3.27.4, or
use a different file manager.

I would recommend option #3, since you can just install the file manager and keep using the same desktop as before.

The following graphical file managers all support link-type desktop files, can be installed in Ubuntu 20.04, and can be used with the GNOME 3 desktop:

Note that Caja and Nemo are both Nautilus forks. All but Thunar follow the link to the new folder; Thunar opens a new window.

I've tested these with a stripped-down version of the desktop file from the example-content package.

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Link
Name=Examples
URL=file:///usr/share/example-content/
Icon=folder

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Ubuntu – Desktop shortcut for terminal command

Right click the desktop and create an empty file (or use gedit) named easytether.desktop. Paste this into this file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Easytether
Exec=easytether connect
Terminal=true
Type=Application

and save! You will then need to make the file executable, by editing the properties of the file, or running: chmod +x easytether.desktop.

The Name=Easytether line specifies the name of the shortcut that will appear to the user.
The Exec=easytether connect line specifies the command to be run, in this case, easytether connect.
The Terminal=true line specifies that the command should be run in GNOME Terminal, so that the user can inspect its output. You can later set this to false if you don't want the shortcut to open a Terminal window. For instance, if you made a shortcut to the "sound" panel of the "settings" and want it to only open that (the command would be "gnome-control-center sound").
You can even add a line Icon=path/to/png/ (or Icon=iconname and put your iconname.png in ~.local/share/icons) in order to add a custom icon to your launcher.

Also, you can put the easytether.desktop file into ~/.local/share/applications and start it from Dash or other app-launcher (Synapse, Kickoff, Slingshot etc).

Ubuntu – Shell Script Desktop Shortcut

Both the desktop entry and the shell script should have executable permissions. Do:

$ chmod +x path_to_shortcut/shortcut.desktop
$ chmod +x path_to_script/test.sh

Another way to change permissions for a script is to right click it, go to Properties > Premissions and check Allow executing file as program.

Permissions

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