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SteveInBavaria
Asked: 2025-03-14 01:37:45 +0800 CST

Icons in dash appear as cogs

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Most applications when run from the terminal show a nice icon or put a dot under the main icon in dash (I am using Dash to Dock in Ubuntu 24.10). Some just add a cog. Some, such as arduino-ide, used to display an icon but now just show a cog. This can be confusing when you have three or more cogs open.

How can I replace the cog with a proper icon? I've tried adding StartupWMClass=ArduinoIDE; to a startup script for the arduino-ide but that doesn't fix it.

Edit:Looking Glass output: enter image description here

.desktop listing:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Programming
GenericName=Programming
Comment=Open-source electronics prototyping platform
Exec=~/ArduinoLatest/arduino-ide_2.3.4_Linux_64bit/arduino-ide
Icon=arduino-arduinoide
Terminal=false
Categories=Development;IDE;Electronics;
MimeType=text/x-arduino;
Keywords=embedded electronics;electronics;avr;microcontroller;
StartupWMClass=ArduinoIDE;
Actions= Arduino-Trad;ArduinoBeta;ArduinoMicroPython;UIFlow;UIFlowWeb;UIFlowWebFF;M5_Burner;Espruino;CuteCom;PicoCom;Meld;Jupyter;Flipper;Eric;RemoteXY;Cura;FreeCad;
unity-dash

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The correct WMClass has to be specified in the .desktop launcher that starts the program.

    • Start the program and check the WMClass of the window that was created
    • Determine which .desktop file is used to launch the program
    • Edit or add the line that reads StartupWMClass=<WMClass>

    Some detail:

    • The WMClass can be seen in the Looking Glass: Hit Alt+F2, type lg then Enter. In the window that appears, consult the tab "Windows".
    • The desktop file is in a directory applications, either under ~/.local/share/ or under one of the directories listed in the XDG_DATA_DIRS directory. If a similar file exists in multiple places, the one present in the location that comes first, is used.
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