Duplicate application icons in Ubuntu dock upon launch

Question

I'm using Ubuntu 17.10 with GNOME shell and Numix-Circle icon theme.

When I hover over the Numix icon for Nightly Web Browser, which is pinned to the dock I get the title "Nightly Web Browser".

But when I launch the program, another icon pops up at the bottom, with the name "Nightly".

pomsky · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-01 16:50:15Z

57

You need to add a proper StartupWMClass line to the .desktop launcher corresponding to the application (refer to this). Follow these steps:

Open Files and go to your /usr/share/applications folder. Look for the "Nightly" file (i.e. the launcher for the application you want to fix) and copy it.
Paste the file in ~/.local/share/applications. It should look like a file with the name <filename>.desktop.
Right click on this .desktop file and open with Text Editor.
Launch "Nightly" (i.e. the application you want to fix) from "Activities".
Run xprop WM_CLASS in Terminal.
Place the cursor over the opened "Nightly" window. The cursor should turn into a crosshair already. Click. You should get a WM_CLASS string for "Nightly" in Terminal.
In the .desktop file opened in Text Editor add the following line
```
StartupWMClass=OBTAINED-VALUE
```
In place of OBTAINED-VALUE put a value you got from step 6 without any quotes.
Save the .desktop file.

answered Nov 10 '17 at 23:00

pomsky

56k14 gold badges189 silver badges211 bronze badges

2

I am trying to do the same with PyCharm. Got "sun-awt-X11-XFramePeer", "jetbrains-pycharm-ce" as the output for step 6. I used StartupWMClass=jetbrains-pycharm-ce and it works. – d4nyll Jan 11 '18 at 15:59
7

9. Rename .desktop file to OBTAINED-VALUE.desktop (e.g. jetbrains-phpstorm.desktop instead phpstorm.desktop), works in Ubuntu 18.04 – Aleksey Deryagin Jul 12 '18 at 16:29
2

Thank you for the answer. It would be really nice to have an explanation of what happens. I don't want to blindly follow some instructions. What is going on and what does the fix do? Would be great if someone could help out. – marts Jan 26 '19 at 12:03
3

@marts Please go through this for an explanations: askubuntu.com/questions/367396/… – pomsky Jan 26 '19 at 12:05
3

@AlekseyDeryagin In step 6, I got WM_CLASS: not found. As the misbehaving application was kile and the name of the file org.kde.kile.desktop, I just added the line StartupWMClass=kile and it works. My wild guess is that the last full-stop separated part of the filename (right before .desktop) should match the StartupWMClass value. – Ansa211 Feb 11 '19 at 12:57

| Show 5 more comments

Éric F · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-30 01:25:44Z

3

related to :

Kile icon buggy in left (launcher) bar (ubuntu 18.04)

On ubuntu 18.04

It works for me

answered Dec 28 '19 at 3:53

Éric F

314 bronze badges

Add a comment |

Chris Hayes · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-26 21:33:44Z

Press Alt + F2
Type "lg" and hit Enter (Looking Glass)
Click on the "Windows" tab.
You should see the titles of all your windows. Below each one you will find a wmclass property. Write down or copy the value you see.
Open up the .desktop config file corresponding to your application. It should be in the ~/.local/share/applications/ folder.
On a new line add wmclass=VALUE_FROM_ABOVE

In my case for Firefox it was "Firefox Developer Edition" and I had to add the line below to my .desktop file:

wmclass=Firefox Developer Edition

3 Answers 3