Ubuntu Technical
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Create custom Unity launcher
Posted by on November 10, 2011
There are quite a few applications, which don’t integrate directly with Ubuntu’s Unity shell by default. They either won’t get kept in the launcher or their icon is not displayed.
Solution
gksudo gedit /usr/share/applications/<name of application>.desktop
After entering the password, gedit will open in root mode.
Paste the following into the file:
[Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 #or whatever version the software is Type=Application Terminal=false StartupNotify=true Icon=<> # fill in path to logo Name=<name of the application> Comment=<> # any description Exec=env UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0 <> # fill in path to the executable Categories=Application; # add as many categories as you see fit
After filling in the required data in the file, save it and close it.
Next time you search for the application in the dash, it will be found with logo and all. You can drag&drop it on the launcher, or start it and right click then ‘Keep in launcher’.
Some of the software I have used this for are: Eclipse and Skrooge.
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for sure unity is a revolution ……
anyway thx for the tips
I am usualy all for stability in detriment of cool new feature. But Unity has managed to solve lots of bugs since 11.04, so I think Canonical are on the right track.
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Its easier to just copy one of shortcuts (.desktop) files from usr/share/applications to the desktop & modify it to point to your application.
Thats really cool! Is there a way to change the background color of the icon? I see that different icons can have different colors.
good one. ta!