Adding Launchers in gnome 3?

[bollwyvl]

Thanks for this!

Gnome 3 doesn't really have a move-stuff-around desktop. The ~/Desktop is still created, it seems, but the default file browser doesn't render .desktop applications as anything other than text files, and clicking them just opens them in your text editor.

However, putting .desktop files in ~/.local/share/applications/ will make them accessible to the launcher under the super key or hot corner. I was sceptical at first, but it's grown on me.

In some experiments, I've been successful in moving the generated shortcuts there, and they work fine, but as it becomes the default on more distros, it might be nice to offer detection of this. Happy to do some more research/PR if interested!

[newville]

@bollwyvl Thanks -- that's a good point.

For sure, the best location for the .desktop files on Linux seems to depend strongly on the window manager. If there is a reliable way to detect (or maybe have the end user specify?) where the best place is, I would certainly have no objections to using that. I'm definitely open to suggestions and PRs.

[bollwyvl]

yeah, no doubt this would take a lot of data and testing! Here's some random googling specifically this comment that could likely be adapted. I guess it depends on how sure we'd want to be!

[newville]

@bollwyvl What if we just put a .desktop file in $HOME/Desktop if it exists, and also put one in $HOME/.local/share/applications if that exists? The desktop files are tiny and owned by the end-user, so I don't see any harm in having a couple copies. And, I believe that for KDE, LXQt, etc that the $HOME/.local/share/applications location will then be available (or at least findable) from the "Start Menu".

[bollwyvl]

I like that plan! Being able to hit 80% with two locations is nice.

[newville]

Closing, as I think this is addressed.