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Accepted
Scaine
Asked: 2012-08-13 11:44:52 +0800 CST

In Unity, how do I see the details of a given launcher?

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I have a few launchers in Unity that I might want to run as sudo once or twice, but I have no idea what to type into the terminal.

At the moment, crazily, I have to run the app, then search for likely candidates in System Monitor! I don't think the Unity Design team intend, ever, to give us a right-click action on the Dash, or a "Details" option if I right-click on a Launcher, so... how do I figure out what's actually being executed when I run a Launcher?

(for the curious, what I'm struggling with is Desura - it's not in the system path, so I can't just whereis desura, assuming desura is what's actually being run - I'd be guessing)

[EDIT : using the method I marked as the answer, I can see that Desura installs in my home directory and as it's a non-root install, it doesn't update the system path.]

unity

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    To read the contents of the launcher file you can open gedit and drag&drop a launcher icon from the dash into it.

    Gedit will then display the .desktop file for that launcher which is by the way stored in 

    /usr/share/applications

    in my case for example

    #!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Desura
GenericName=Game Manager
Comment=Download and play the best games
Exec=/home/daniel/desura/desura %U
TryExec=/home/daniel/desura/bin/desura
Path=/home/daniel/desura
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/desura;
Icon=/home/daniel/desura/data/desura.png
Terminal=false
Categories=Game;
StartupNotify=false

    Now just look at the 'Exec=' line in that document in my case

    Exec=/home/daniel/desura/desura %U

    This will point you to where the executable is stored and tell you the name (desura).

    By the way...normally it is neither necessary nor a good idea to run desura in root mode.

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  2. Use the starter file properties

    Drag the icon onto the desktop, right click on it and select "Proprerties". The command is in the "Command" field:

    enter image description here

    Use Arronax

    Install Arronax, open Arronax and drag the icon from the dash into Arronax. , the command is in the "Command" field:

    enter image description here

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