Manage App Icons
When you click the start menu, you see a list of apps. These apps are represented by icons. Sometimes you may want to add a new app to the list, or view which command is executed when you click an app icon.
This tutorial will show you how to manage app icons\shortcuts in AnduinOS.
System wide apps
To view all registered GUI system-wide apps, you can run the following command:
cd /usr/share/applications
ls
To view the content of a specific app, you can run the following command:
cd /usr/share/applications
cat <app-name>.desktop
For example, to view the content of the org.gnome.Chess.desktop app, you can run the following command:
anduin@anduin-System-Product-Name:/usr/share/applications$ cat ./org.gnome.Chess.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Chess
GenericName=Chess Game
Comment=Play the classic two-player board game of chess
# Translators: Search terms to find this application. Do NOT translate or localize the semicolons! The list MUST also end with a semicolon!
Keywords=game;strategy;
Version=1.0
Exec=gnome-chess %U
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Game;BoardGame;
StartupNotify=true
# Translators: Do NOT translate or transliterate this text (this is an icon file name)!
Icon=org.gnome.Chess
MimeType=application/x-chess-pgn;
DBusActivatable=true
# Translators: Do NOT translate or transliterate this text (these are enum types)!
X-Purism-FormFactor=Workstation;Mobile;
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=gnome-chess
Where the Exec field specifies the command to run the app, and the Icon field specifies the icon file name.
You can also create your new app. For example if you want to create a new app called Virt Viewer, you can run the following command:
sudo apt install virt-viewer
sudo su
echo "
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Virt Viewer
Comment=Connect to virtual machines
Exec=virt-viewer
Icon=virt-viewer
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=System;" | sudo tee /usr/share/applications/virt-viewer.desktop
After creating the .desktop file, you can find the app in the apps list. And you can pin it to the start menu\taskbar or the desktop.
User-specific apps
To view all registered GUI user-specific apps, you can run the following command:
cd ~/.local/share/applications
ls
Everything else is the same as system-wide apps.
Manage desktop icons
To pin an app on the desktop, you need to copy the app's .desktop file to the desktop directory and allow execution.
You can also run the following command:
cd ~/Desktop
cp /usr/share/applications/<app-name>.desktop
sudo chown $USER:$USER <app-name>.desktop
chmod +x <app-name>.desktop
For example, to pin the org.gnome.Chess.desktop app on the desktop, you can run the following command:
cd ~/Desktop
cp /usr/share/applications/org.gnome.Chess.desktop
sudo chown $USER:$USER org.gnome.Chess.desktop
chmod +x org.gnome.Chess.desktop
That's it! You have successfully added the app to the desktop.