How to make shortcut to terminal application?

Question

I just installed a nifty calculator tool that needs to run from a terminal: tapecalc

Is there a way to add either a shortcut icon (or an icon in the dash application area) or a short cut key combination so I can run this without opening a terminal and then remembering what the app's name is and then entering tapecalc in the terminal window to start it?

Answer 1

Yes, you can start the Terminal and make it run the command automatically. Create a custom application launcher that runs this as the command:

gnome-terminal -e tapecalc

While this is a perfectly good way to do it, pl1nk's way is even better (in part because it will run with whatever terminal application is set as default in your desktop environment). Since that was posted, I now recommend using that method instead of this, and upvoting that answer. :-)

Answer 2

Create a FileName.desktop with these contents:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=x.y
Name=ProgramName
Comment=This is my comment
Exec=/path-to-you-app/application_name
Terminal=true