How to create "shortcuts" in Ubuntu

BQ M10 Ubuntu tablet

Ubuntu on a BQ M10 Tablet

Many times it will have happened to you that you install a program from the terminal and its icon to Ubuntu launcher. Therefore you must go to the terminal to run it from its location and this is somewhat cumbersome or at least not as direct as the graphical method. For this reason, in this minitutorial we are going to show you how to add a "direct access" to your favorite programs so that you do not have to open them from the command console and be able to search for them in the Dash or directly click on their icon anchored to the launcher.

Well, for this to be the case, the first thing we must open is our preferred text editor to create a file named program_name.desktop. For example, with gedit as in our case, and you replace "program_name" with the name of the program in question for which you are trying to create a shortcut. The location where you must save this file is in / usr / share / applications as we indicate in the following text insert:

sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/nombre_del_programa.desktop

En the inside of the file created we must insert the following code (replace the text with what you need in each case, since here I present it in a generic way so that it works in any case):

[Desktop Entry]

Name=Nombre_del_programa

Comment=Comentario_que_quieras_hacer_sobre_el_programa

Exec=/dirección/del/programa/en/cuestion

Icon=/dirección/del/icono/del/programa/.ico/si/existe

Terminal=false

Type=Application

We save and go. Now when looking for it in the Unity Dash It will appear and if we click it it will open. If you want to anchor it to the launcher to make it even faster, you can do it while opening the program, by clicking on the icon that appears in the launcher because it is open and clicking on "Keep in the launcher".


4 comments, leave yours

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  1.   Guille said

    Normally, all I do is press the control and Shift keys and by clicking on the program icon in the normal menu or on the executable I drag it to the desktop or wherever I want and after pressing the keys and then the mouse is created direct access.

    1.    nuria said

      Thank you! It works perfectly without having to open the terminal! Javascript :;

    2.    Dario said

      Genius…. Thanks for the information.

  2.   YES AC said

    It should be noted that when creating them in Ubuntu 14.04 there is a bug of not being able to move them through the desktop because it is typical of Unity. I understand that it has already been solved, but I don't know in which version the error is already solved.