How to Manually Create Application Launcher (Desktop Shortcut) in Ubuntu 12.04

If you installed a application and want to access it from your desktop or launcher panel then you have to create the launcher icon (app shortcut). Suppose I want to create a launcher for “Aptana Studio 3”. I need to create a file with file extention .desktop in /usr/share/applications that contains informations about my application.

$ sudo vi /usr/share/applications/Aptana.desktop

In this file, I need to past some informations about my application which are:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=3
Type=Application
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true
Icon=/usr/src/Aptana_Studio_3/icon.xpm
Name=Aptana
Comment=Programming IDE
Exec=/usr/src/Aptana_Studio_3/AptanaStudio3
Categories=Application;Development;

Don’t forget to change informations that consern you application. (Probably, you’ll need to change: Icon, Name, Comment, Exec and Categories)