Custom Ubuntu Starter / Menu Entry

Sometimes I am installing software and would like to have a starter entry in the menu or the sidepanel but some programs don’t create one. But it’s quite easy to add a custom runner.

Just create a file somewhere on your disk. I used my home directory (~) and Postman as an example app – here my ~/postman.desktop file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Postman
Exec=/opt/Postman/Postman
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=/opt/Postman/app/resources/app/assets/icon.png
StartupWMClass=Postman
Comment=collaboration platform for API development
Categories=Development;

With this file in place you have to decide to install it for all users or for a single user only.

For all users run

sudo desktop-file-install ~/postman.desktop

or for you active user run

desktop-file-install --dir=$HOME/.local/share/applications ~/postman.desktop

After running one of those commands you will find the starter in the menu.