How can i edit tooltips for unity launcher icons

Question

I want to change the tooltips for some icons in unity launcher. Is there any way we can do that?

Answer 1

The unity launcher icons are defined by .desktop files - usually from /usr/share/applications.

The tooltip is the Name= section in this file - for example, the default seahorse.desktop file looks like:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Passwords and Encryption Keys
Comment=Manage your passwords and encryption keys
Exec=seahorse
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=seahorse
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Security;Settings;
StartupNotify=true
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=GNOME
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=seahorse
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=general
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Version=2.32.0
X-GNOME-DocPath=seahorse/seahorse.xml
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=seahorse

To change the tooltip on a per user basis, copy the desktop file to your local applications folder i.e.

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
cp /usr/share/applications/seahorse.desktop ~/.local/share/applications

Then edit this file with you favourite editor and change the Name= value for example

gedit ~/.local/share/applications/seahorse.desktop

In the image I've changed Name= to be:

Name=my new tooltip

Open Nautilus and browse to the folder ~/.local/share/applications and drag and drop seahorse.desktop to the launcher