I can start, PyCharm from a shell script in a subdirectory of /opt. I get a gray question-mark icon (see attachment) rather than the orange/green PyCharm icon (see attachment). Note that the correct icon is in the PyCharm directory out-of-the-box.
I can lock this gray icon to Launcher, but this icon does not work to launch PyCharm.
How can I get a Launcher button to launch PyCharm?
(Ubuntu 14.10)
When you start PyCharm for the first time, you will be offered the opportunity to set up desktop integration:
As you can see, you can tick: Create desktop entry (integrate in sytem menu)
This will (or would :)) create a .desktop file, jetbrains-pycharm-ce.desktop, in either /usr/share/applictions or ~/.local/share/applications, depending on if you chose For all users or not.
If you missed the message, you can simply temporarily rename the folder:
~/.PyCharm40
...and restart PyCharm, since the absence of this folder will make PyCharm assume you run it for the first time. Then, after things are done, you can simply remove the newly created ~/.PyCharm40 folder and rename the original folder.
From then on, you can simply run Pycharm from its own launcher.
Although the message in the window says: You can use File | Settings to configure any of these settings later, I found a lot of settings options, but not the one to create a "Desktop Entry". It looks like the method above is the only option :)
You can make a .desktop file in /usr/share/applications.
sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/python.desktop[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=[choose a name]
Type=Application
Comment=[description]
Exec=[/path/to/executable]
Icon=[path/to/icon]
Terminal=false/usr/share/applications and drag the new file to your launcher.