Shortcut in Linux

How to create a shortcut in linux that executes a shell script

1. We create the shortcut.

Typically it's a ".desktop" ascii file with these entries although it can have more:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Sample Application Name
Comment=A sample application
Exec=application
Icon=application.png
Terminal=false

- The Name specifies the name of the launcher.
- Exec is the most important line as it specifies which script to launch and how it would be launched. We will leave this field blank til we have the shell script written
- Icon we set the path of the app's icon if available.
- Terminal specifies whether the app needs a terminal to run.

2. We create the shell script.

#!/bin/bash

. ~/.bashrc
PATH=$PATH:/srv/XXXX/XXXX/final_directory;
export PATH
cd /srv/projects/myproject

[some commands executing applications]

The first line is a comment indicating which shell will execute the script, in this case BASH.

The second line is a line that loads all the basrc file extensions

Then we perform some tasks such as adding another value to the system environment variable path and export that new entry.

We change our current directory and finally we call some commands that will launch our application.

3. We link the Exec command of the desktop file to the script

Note: if we have successfully coded our script it should work from the command line writing:

sh <ourscriptname>.sh

In our case an example of launching the shell script from our desktop file by double-clicking is

Exec=gnome-terminal -x bash -c "sh /path/to/thescript/scriptname.sh;bash"

Another linux tip: when we try to open a file sometimes we dont get to choose the right program even selecting "open with other programs". The trick to making appear the application in that list is editing as root its corresponding ".desktop" file normally placed in /usr/shared/applications/<name>.desktop and in the "command" or "Exec" field write at the end of the command the following: "<previous_commands><blank space>%U"

We save... and that should do the trick!!!