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Alexander Mills
Asked: 2018-08-19 12:03:00 +0800 CST

kdenlive appimage file: how to get it to show in list of applications

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I downloaded kdenlive, a video editor, and I now have a kdenlive.appimage file on my Desktop now. How can I can get that .appimage file to show as an application in the apps view?

I tried dragging the .appimage file into the "Ubuntu Software" GUI but that didn't do anything.

I tried installing kdenlive through Ubuntu software, but that version seems older than the version I downloaded as an appimage

gnome kdenlive appimage

2 Answers

  1. Making AppImages executable

    Before you can run an AppImage, you need to make it executable. This is a Linux security feature. There are three main ways to make an AppImage executable:

    With the GUI

    1. Open your file manager and browse to the location of the AppImage
    2. Right-click on the AppImage and click the ‘Properties’ entry
    3. Switch to the Permissions tab and
    4. Click the ‘Allow executing file as program’ checkbox if you are using a Nautilus-based file manager (Files, Nemo, Caja), or click the ‘Is executable’ checkbox if you are using Dolphin, or change the ‘Execute’ drop down list to ‘Anyone’ if you are using PCManFM
    5. Close the dialog
    6. Double-click on the AppImage file to run

    animation going through the process

    On the command line

    chmod a+x Some.Appimage

    Integrating AppImages with the system

    You do not need to integrate an AppImage with the system (menus) in order to use it. If you still would like to integrate AppImages with the system (menus, icons, MIME types), you can use the optional appimaged daemon.

    https://github.com/AppImage/appimaged

    appimaged is an optional daemon that watches locations like ~/bin and ~/Downloads for AppImages and if it detects some, registers them with the system, so that they show up in the menu, have their icons show up, MIME types associated, etc. It also unregisters AppImages again from the system if they are deleted.

    Automatically with the optional appimaged daemon

    If you would like to have all AppImages be executable automatically, you can install the optional appimaged daemon. It will automatically add downloaded AppImages to the menu and make them executable for you. It can be downloaded from https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/releases or installed from your distribution.

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  2. I use Kubuntu 18.04. I downloaded a LibreOffice AppImage as described here.

    I placed the AppImage in ~/bin which is in my $PATH and made it executable.

    I also created .desktop files for the Calc and Writer components of the LibreOffice suite and placed these files in ~/.local/share/applications. The guide for creating each .desktop file was the corresponding .desktop file in /usr/share/applications for the LibreOffice component that was installed as part of Kubuntu 18.04.

    Here's my ~/.local/share/applications/LiboAppCalc.desktop as an illustration. You could try something similar by looking at your system-installed application's .desktop file. Note that I've trimmed the line for MimeType which otherwise goes on and on.

    [Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Terminal=false
Icon=libreoffice-calc
Type=Application
Categories=Office;Spreadsheet;
#Exec=libreoffice --calc %U
#LibreOffice-fresh.basic.help-x86_64.AppImage
Exec=LibreOffice-fresh.basic.help-x86_64.AppImage --calc %U

MimeType=application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet;application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet-template;application/vnd.sun.xml.calc; ... ;
Name=LibreOffice Calc
GenericName=Spreadsheet
Comment=Perform calculations, analyze information and manage lists in spreadsheets by using Calc.
StartupNotify=true
X-GIO-NoFuse=true
Keywords=Accounting;Stats;OpenDocument Spreadsheet;Chart;Microsoft Excel;Microsoft Works;OpenOffice Calc;ods;xls;xlsx;
InitialPreference=5
StartupWMClass=libreoffice-calc
X-KDE-Protocols=file,http,ftp,webdav

Actions=NewDocument;
[Desktop Action NewDocument]
Name=New Spreadsheet
#Exec=libreoffice --calc
Exec=LibreOffice-fresh.basic.help-x86_64.AppImage --calc

    In case it helps, here's the kdenlive .desktop file (but it's for Cosmic) and I stripped out the other languages:

    org.kde.kdenlive.desktop

    # KDE Config File
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Kdenlive
GenericName=Video Editor
Comment=Nonlinear video editor by KDE
Type=Application
Exec=kdenlive %U
Icon=kdenlive
X-DocPath=kdenlive/index.html
X-DocPath[cs]=http://cs.wikibooks.org/wiki/Kdenlive
Terminal=false
MimeType=application/x-kdenlive;
Categories=Qt;KDE;AudioVideo;AudioVideoEditing;
Keywords=video;audio;firewire;video4linux;suite;editing;kde;mlt;
X-DBUS-ServiceName=org.kde.kdenlive
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