How does one create a custom application launcher for Wine installed apps?

Question

I'm able to locate stuff with the dash home then drag it down to the launcher bar on the left of the desktop, but what if the application installed via Wine isn't found via the dash search? I've right clicked on the application in the .wine directory and found no options to create a launcher either.

Answer 1

You can create a Launcher item in /usr/share/applications. For Wine applications, say foobar.exe, you can create a foobar.desktop file like:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=FooBar
Comment=Foo & Bar
Exec=sh -c "cd /home/USER/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/FOOBAR_FOLDER; wine foobar.exe"
Icon=wine
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Wine;
StartupNotify=true

replacing USER and FOOBAR_FOLDER with appropriate values.

So you'll be able to locate your application in the Launcher by typing "FooBar".

Answer 2

To get a wine application into the unity bar, the following worked for me:

• Start alacarte.
• Go to wine - programs - ... (where your wine program is located).
• Move the program icon to another folder (outside of wine; e.g., office).
• Close Alacarte.

Now I could find the program in the unity dash and just move it to the unity bar.

Answer 3

Didn't work out of the box for me, but with a small detail I got it working. Simply give the full path for sh like:

Exec=/bin/sh -c "cd /home/USER/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/FOOBAR_FOLDER; wine foobar.exe"

Answer 4

Tested with

Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn)
Wine-1.7.34
Foxit Reader 7

When you install an app through wine, a corresponding .desktop file is created in the /home/ash/.local/share/applications folder.

Important:

1. Replace ash in the path above with your username.
   
2. In Unity Desktop Environment, press Ctrl+h in your home directory to see the hidden file .local

Once you locate that file, go through the following steps:

1. Right click and check Properties.
2. Go to the Permissions tab and check Allow executing file as program.
3. Go to the Basic tab and change the Command field as follows:

   original: C:\Program Files (x86)\Foxit Software\Foxit Reader\FoxitReader.exe

   changed: wine "C:\Program Files (x86)\Foxit Software\Foxit Reader\FoxitReader.exe"

4. Close the Properties window. An icon of the application should come forth.

Now that we have got all the necessary changes made, we are to do either of the following two options:

1. Drag the file to the launcher.
2. Start the program by double-clicking. When started, a launcher icon will show up in the launcher. Right click on that and check Lock to Launcher.

We are done. Cheers ...

Answer 5

The best solution by some distance is to use a script such as wine-launcher-creator which will take care of creating the desktop launcher, and also do nice things like extract the necessary icons and so on. No need to fiddle around doing it by hand :)

Answer 6

Unity Dash works like the old Gnome2 menu did with adding stuff through the "Edit Main Menu" feature but for some reason Canonical decided to make that difficult to know you can even do that.

All you do is...

1. get the command to run the wine app (basically the same thing in this case).
2. Press "Super" (windows key) to launch the Dash.
3. Enter "Main Menu" in the search field and open the old Edit Main Menu app.
4. If you are familiar with doing this in Ubuntu 10.10 or older via Gnome2 then it is the same process.
5. If you aren't then, Select the Category (aka Unity Dash Filter) you want the item in.
6. Choose an Icon, if you want to.
7. Name the Dash/Launcher Item
8. Add the Command to launch said app (what we got earlier)

Close the Main Menu app and you're done.

This is a bit more involved but this solution does not require any file editing.

Important Note - not all versions of Ubuntu come with the Main Menu app installed by default so if it is not then just go to the Ubuntu Software Center and search for "alacarte" install that and the tip above will work with no problem.