How do I keep webapps from appearing in launcher?

Question

I've been looking for a way to keep them from appearing in the bar (and taskswitcher). I want to use webapps, since I quite like the idea of integration (especially for google docs and gmail), but I hate when I have ten of them in the sidebar. Is there anyway to use them without them popping up there?

Answer 1

To put it bluntly, no. I agree that webapp integration is a great idea, however most of the webapp integration is built around the icon showing up in the launcher. The idea (as far as I can tell) is that when you right click the webapp launcher icon, common tasks appear, and when you close the webapp, it is easy to open it again right away.

If you were simply looking for something to launch the webapp, my suggestion would be to create .desktop files instead of using Unity's integration.

THIS IS FOR MODERATELY ADVANCED USERS. if you are new to Linux, a google search on .desktop files would be a good idea before getting started.

For instance, if you wanted to launch Google Calendar from Firefox and the Dash, but did not want it to show up in the launcher, you might create a file that looks like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Google Drive
Exec=firefox http://drive.google.com/
Icon=google
Type=Application
Comment=A quick launcher for Google Drive
OnlyShowIn=unity;

This would simply show up as Firefox in the launcher, however in the Dash it would show up as Google Drive. If you are using Ubuntu 12.10 or later, right clicking on this icon would give you the icon, name, and whatever you type as a comment.

Just save the file, then open the preferences dialog after right clicking on it in the file manager. You should see a tab that says "permissions," and a checkbox that says "Allow executing file as program." Check this box, then run sudo nautilus in a terminal. In the new file browser window, navigate to /usr/share/applications. Drag your newly created file from your file manager into the one we created in the terminal. Close the file managers, and log out and back in. You should see the launcher you made in the dash when you search for its name.