Dealing with *.desktop files in $HOME/.local/share/applications

vendion · 2014-05-25 20:53:06

Hello all,

I'm hoping someone here can help me figure this out, and I'm not sure that the way I phrased it in the subject line is very clear. With Chrome 35 on Linux the App Menu that previously saved for ChromeOS, OSX, and Windows is now on Linux. The problem is it creates its entries in $HOME/.local/share/applications and their icon files in $HOME/.local/share/icons these are the chrome app menu itself and installed package applications. I am trying to figure out how to make my current setup with Wingo as my Window Manage, Tint2 as my bar, and Dmenu for my application menu.

The way I would like to set this up is I would like to have a application launcher for the chrome app menu in Tint2, I currently have it in my configuration file pointing to the $HOME/.local/share/applications/chrome-app-list.desktop file but it can't find the icon file that is stored under $HOME/.local/share/icons/hicolor. Here is the relevant section from my tint2rc file

#Laaunchers
launcher_icon_theme = LinuxLex-8
launcher_padding = 5 0 10
launcher_background_id = 9
launcher_icon_size= 85
launcher_item_app = /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop
launcher_item_app = $HOME/.local/share/applications/chrome-app-list.desktop
launcher_item_app = /usr/share/applications/Thunar.desktop

The other thing I would like to do is call the app menu and package apps from dmenu, but I am not sure if this is as possible.

ninian · 2014-05-25 22:10:44

How did you create the chrome-app-list.desktop file in the first place - is there a Chromium option to do so? As far as I can see, I can only create one application 'shortcut' at a time.

You can't specify $HOME in the tint2 configuration; use the full path thus:

launcher_item_app = /home/user/.local/share/applications/chrome-app-list.desktop

(You can then restart tint2 with: killall -SIGUSR1 tint2)

For the shortcuts I created (Gmail, Google Drive), the icons were placed in the directory: /home/user/.local/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/

If you want to launch .desktop files from dmenu, you might be interested in my ayr launcher.

Hope these comments help a bit.

vendion · 2014-05-26 14:10:33

To enable the chrome app menu in Linux it is hidden behind a flag chrome://flags/#enable-app-list if you enable that and restart Chrome then it all gets created. In my Tint2 menu I have two launchers enabled right now, one for Chrome, and one for Thunar so I know I can have more than one application launcher at a time. Didn't think having $HOME in the configuration file would have been the problem, I guess it does not parse shell environmental variables. Fixing that and restarting tint2 to fixed that.

I'm looking into ayr now, not sure if it works like xboomx or if it would replace it.

ninian · 2014-05-26 14:45:07

vendion wrote:

To enable the chrome app menu in Linux it is hidden behind a flag chrome://flags/#enable-app-list if you enable that and restart Chrome then it all gets created.

Aha, thank you! Got it working fine.
PS: You can launch the desktop file Chrome creates with:

ayr -e chromium-app-list.desktop

Arch Linux

#1 2014-05-25 20:53:06

Dealing with *.desktop files in $HOME/.local/share/applications

#2 2014-05-25 22:10:44

Re: Dealing with *.desktop files in $HOME/.local/share/applications

#3 2014-05-26 14:10:33

Re: Dealing with *.desktop files in $HOME/.local/share/applications

#4 2014-05-26 14:45:07

Re: Dealing with *.desktop files in $HOME/.local/share/applications

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