Create custom Unity launcher / Menu entry

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.

General Workaround

Type gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/Desktop/ --create-new
Create launcher. Place it into /usr/share/applications directory.

Taken from http://shuffleos.com/3274/how-to-create-desktop-launchers-in-ubuntu-11-10-oneiric-ocelot/

Workaround 1

Type gksudo gedit /usr/share/applications/.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=
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.

Taken from http://ubuntutechnical.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/create-custom-unity-launcher/


Workaround 2
Just do the following

wget  http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47950494/Create-Launcher
cp Create-Launcher ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts
chmod +x ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/Create-Launcher
mv ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/Create-Launcher ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/”Create Launcher”

"Create-Launcher" is just a bash script, you can create it self. Do not forget to do "chmod +x Create-Launcher" afterwards. Its contents:

#!/bin/bash
gnome-desktop-item-edit --create-new ~/Desktop

Taken from http://shuffleos.com/3708/how-to-create-desktop-launchers-right-click-context-menu-ubuntu-11-10/

I hope everybody can do it now. (including me)