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Motivation

Add icons to desktop so that you do not have to remember all the names

Case Study: Fiji

1. Download the Fiji application

Use following links:

I downloaded it to ~/Documents/Programs, the full path is:

/home/vld/Documents/Programs

2. Extract the file in the Thunar manager

  • Will extract to fiji-stable-linux64-jdk
  • Now when you navigate to the /home/vld/Documents/Programs/fiji-stable-linux64-jdk/Fiji.app/fiji-linux-x64 and click it the fiji will start
  • This is not very practical for GUI use

3. Add it to applications

cp /home/vld/Documents/Programs/fiji-stable-linux64-jdk/Fiji.app/ImageJ2.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/fiji.desktop
chmod +x ~/.local/share/applications/fiji.desktop

4. Edit the desktop file

vim ~/.local/share/applications/fiji.desktop

should look like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=ImageJ
GenericName=ImageJ
X-GNOME-FullName=ImageJ
Comment=Scientific Image Analysis
Type=Application
Categories=Education;Science;ImageProcessing;
Exec=/home/vld/Documents/Programs/fiji-stable-linux64-jdk/Fiji.app/fiji-linux-x64 %F
TryExec=/home/vld/Documents/Programs/fiji-stable-linux64-jdk/Fiji.app/fiji-linux-x64
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true
MimeType=image/*;
Icon=/home/vld/Documents/Programs/fiji-stable-linux64-jdk/Fiji.app/images/icon.png
StartupWMClass=net-imagej-launcher-ClassLauncher

The important lines to change are the Exec and TryExec

5. Make it an exectuable icon on destkop

cp ~/.local/share/applications/fiji.desktop ~/Desktop/

It will create an icon (grey ) right click it and “allow launching”

6. Make icons to be on top left

Settings-> Desktop -> Icons