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Firstly, I should say I am enjoying the new Unity interface. It's not without it's peccadilloes, however. My main concern, for the purposes of my question, is that there are a couple of applications that I have installed which do not appear in the Application list accessed on the Unity Launcher. Is there a way to force Unity to acknowledge these skipped over programs?

One of the programs I am having trouble with is Ryzom, a online role playing game. It's a game that doesn't require a traditional install like most programs. You simply extract to a folder in your Home directory and run the client program. Perhaps Unity doesn't recognize programs that aren't "installed". Can I add Ryzom to the Applications list so I can start it without resorting to Terminal? I've tried using the Main Menu function in System, but apparently that has no bearing on what applications show up in Unity. That would explain why all the program I had hidden in Main Menu are showing up in Unity.

Thanks for any insight you can give.

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3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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I think you need to create a .desktop file in your /usr/share/applications/ folder. Have a look at any .desktop file and create a new one with what you need.

Here's my Banshee.desktop. Only replace Exec, Name, Icon and a few things.

[Desktop Entry]
Exec=banshee-1 --redirect-log --device-activate-play=%u
NoDisplay=true
MimeType=x-content/audio-cdda;
Version=1.0
Name=Banshee Media Player
GenericName=Media Player
X-GNOME-FullName=Banshee Media Player
Comment=Play and organize your media collection
Icon=media-player-banshee
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=GNOME;Audio;Music;Player;AudioVideo;X-Ximian-Main;X-Novell-Main;X-Red-Hat-Base;
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=GNOME
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=banshee
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=General
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Version=1.7.6
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=banshee

I think also you can create in "alacarte" (the Menu Editor) a launcher (it creates it self a .desktop file).

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  • Actually, I had created a launcher in the Menu Editor before updating to Maverick. Indeed, none of the launchers I created for WINE applications I had installed show in Unity's application search either.
    – N.C. Weber
    Oct 15, 2010 at 15:12
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    Okay, I created the new .desktop file and it worked. Thanks very much for the solution.
    – N.C. Weber
    Oct 15, 2010 at 16:06
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If you start the application in the terminal, does it appear in the launcher? if so, right click on it and select "add to launcher".

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  • I have a mono app that I use that does display in the launcher but the "add to launcher" menu item does not appear.
    – rifferte
    Oct 15, 2010 at 1:58
  • While I can add the program to the Unity Launcher, I'm actually more interested in why it doesn't appear in the Applications search, and how can I get it included in the search.
    – N.C. Weber
    Oct 15, 2010 at 15:13
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In Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot there is a program called Main Menu that makes it very easy to register applications with Unity.

I don't know if Main Menu is any previous versions of Ubuntu.

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  • Main Menu is a name for alacarte, it exists on previous versions of Ubuntu.
    – Bruno Pereira
    Jan 24, 2012 at 20:58

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