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Accepted
kerner1000
Asked: 2017-12-31 07:04:47 +0800 CST

Cannot add custom launcher to Ubuntu Dock ('Add to Favorites' option does not show up)

  • 772

I have a custom .desktop file:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Icon[en_US]=/home/alex/bin/idea-IC-173.4127.27/bin/idea.png
Name[en_US]=IntelliJ
Exec=/home/alex/bin/idea-IC-173.4127.27/bin/idea.sh
Name=IntelliJ
Icon=/home/alex/bin/idea-IC-173.4127.27/bin/idea.png

Output of ls -lha .local/share/applications/intellij.desktop:

-rwx--x--x 1 alex alex 248 Dez 30 10:54 .local/share/applications/intellij.desktop

Answers posted to a previous question (How can I add custom '.desktop' application launchers to Ubuntu Dock?) don't work for me. I can find this launcher in Activities and I can double click on that file and IntelliJ will start. Nevertheless, I cannot add this launcher as a favorite to the dock. The option does not show up.

gnome-shell

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Open Terminal and run 

    gsettings get org.gnome.shell favorite-apps

    You should get the list of .desktop files associated to the apps pinned to Ubuntu dock in order, something like the following:

    ['appname-1.desktop', 'appname-2.desktop', 'appname-3.desktop', 'appname-4.desktop', 'appname-5.desktop']

    Suppose you want to pin the app associated to the intellij.desktop file as the second item in the dock. In that case, run 

    gsettings set org.gnome.shell favorite-apps "['appname-1.desktop', 'intellij.desktop', 'appname-2.desktop', 'appname-3.desktop', 'appname-4.desktop', 'appname-5.desktop']"
    • 47

  2. The answer from @pomsky is correct, but there is an easier way: use 

    dconf-editor

    (install it with sudo apt-get install dconf-editor if not installed) and navigate to

    org/gnome/shell/favorite-apps.

    There it is possible to edit and rearrange the Launcher.

    • 17

  3. This can happen when the StartupWMClass doesn't correspond to the WMClass of the application. See this question for details on how it works and how to find the WMClass. In my case, setting the correct StartupWMClass in the .desktop file fixes this issue.

    • 9

  4. in my case, the file was initially named idea.desktop.
    i had to rename it to jetbrains-idea.desktop to get this to work.
    i realized this since on hovering over the icon on the dock, and it showed a tooltip of jetbrains-idea

    sudo mv /usr/share/applications/idea.desktop /usr/share/applications/jetbrains-idea.desktop

    • 0