How to create desktop launcher?

[niemand]

How to create desktop launcher for an application? I'm on Mageia 3, Gnome 3.
How can I tell what file those Gnome 3 icons are pointing to?

[doktor5000]

You could use alacarte, the GNOME menu editor, but from what I remember there was an issue quite some time that it crashed when starting. That would be one ways to see the command called by a desktop file.

About how to create new desktop launcher, IIRC GNOME3 doesn't permit that by default.
You may need to install and extension for that from https://extensions.gnome.org/ but don't take my word for granted on this one, as I don't use GNOME.

If you want to put a launcher directly on the desktop, you could also simply copy the .desktop file e.g. from /usr/share/applications into your /home/username/Desktop and adjust that file to your liking ...

[niemand]

If you want to put a launcher directly on the desktop, you could also simply copy the .desktop file e.g. from /usr/share/applications into your /home/username/Desktop and adjust that file to your liking ...

I tried that, and it didn't work. When I clicked on it, it would open the file via gedit.

[doktor5000]

Hmmm, is it marked as executable? Please check via file manager or right-click -> properties.

You may also want to look at some related docs:
https://developer.gnome.org/integration ... es.html.en
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/791
https://ask.fedoraproject.org/question/ ... ts-solved/

[niemand]

After setting the *.desktop file to be executable, the icon in the Desktop folder can launch the application. But the icon under Activities--or whatever that search thing is called--still opens up the *.desktop file in gedit. What's wrong?
I can't even add the icon from the search into the Favorites bar because right-clicking shows no menu for some strange reason.