How to create a launcher on the desktop which opens a random application?

Question

I want to make a launcher which opens a random application. So I looked it up on this site and I found this:

• How to create a shortcut to start a Windows application with Wine?

But I have a right-click menu on my desktop that looks like this:

So now I still don't know how to create launchers. Does anyone know a way for dummies?

Answer 1

Starting with Ubuntu 11.10, this is the fastest way (at least for me) to create a new launcher on your desktop.

That being said, let's make a script called random_app which will open a random application:

#!/bin/bash

apps_path="/usr/share/applications/"

random_app=$(grep -m 1 "^Exec" "$apps_path$(ls $apps_path | shuf -n 1)" | \
           awk -F'[=| ]' '{ print $2 }')

$random_app

Save the script in your ~/bin directory and make it executable using the following command in terminal:

chmod +x ~/bin/random_app

Now, you can create a launcher on your desktop as it is explained here for the script random_app: