How to create a shortcut (but not on desktop!) in Ubuntu 19.04?

Question

To run a game designed for Windows, I used Wine to install it and the game runs perfectly.

I also tried to create a shortcut for the game which created a .desktop file.

Now I know that these .desktop files do not work as expected in Ubuntu 19.04 and that to make it work - if it is places on your desktop - you should right-click the shortcut and select "Allow launching".

This works for me. However, I want to place the shortcut to a certain folder instead of my desktop.

But then I don't see any way how to enable "allow launching".

Double-clicking the shortcut only opens my default text editor.

Does anyone has any suggestions?

Answer 1

Open a terminal in the folder and run the command chmod +x name-of-the-program.desktop.

Alternatively, you can right click on the .desktop file, open properties, and mark the file as executable.

Answer 2

Legacy way: using shell launcher

Many free software projects are still using a shell script to start the app within multiple platforms.

Shell is portable in most GNU/POSIX environments, also it allows checking the environment before launching the target app.

1. Here a template: start.sh

   #!/usr/bin/sh
   
   #change directory if needed, some wine games need to be launched from their root directory
   cd gamerootdirectory
   
   #launch the game
   wine game.exe
   

2. Set permissions

   chmod +x start.sh

Now, you can start as same way you expect with desktop files.

Reference:

• Wine User's Guide - How to run Windows programs from the command line