LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] Google Chrome works in GNOME when started from a command line, but it's not displayed in the applications menu.

First, be aware that I'm running a Fedora 25 system, so this may not be a real problem. :)

Anyhow, the google-chrome.desktop file in in the /usr/lib/applications/ directory, and is displayed on the menus of most of the other desktop environments (e.g., Mate, LXQT, ...).

When started from a terminal, it seems to work with no problems. (In fact, I'm typing this query using Chrome started in that way.)

I assumed that the problem was because several of the GNOME .menu files list google-chrome in the <exclude>...</exclude> sections, editing those file to remove references to "google-chrome" did not make the application appear on the menu.

I also tried remodeling the google-chrome.desktop file so it looked more like the Midori.desktop file, since the GNOME documentation talks about their "modifications" to the XDG_Desktop standard. That only resulted in the Midori application no longer being displayed. (I assume that I inadvertantly saved a messed-up copy while I was editing the Chrome .desktop file.)

So, my questions:

Has anyone seen this problem on other Fedora releases?
Are there other .desktop file that are not available from the "Activities" action of GNOME?
If you've had a similar problem, have you solved it?

If you're interested, here's a bash script I wrote that I use to start detached commands from a terminal window. (I needed this because I find the KDE desktop much easier to use then the GNOME one, and, for some -- as yet undetermined -- reason, the KDM works, but the shell crashes when plasmashell is started. So, if I want to use KDM, I have to work mostly from terminal windows.)

Code:

$ cat ~/bin/Init

#!/bin/bash

help()

{

  local i name lc

  lc=${1,,?}

  name=$(basename ${0})

  if ( [ -z "${1}" ] || [[ "${lc}" =~ ^-+h ]] )

  then

    cat <<EOF >&1

${name}: Run a command, detached, supressing all terminal output.



Usage: ${name} command [arguments ...]



Special command values:

  -h|--help                Print this message to stderr and exit

  -s|--setup[=n[oauto]]    Run the set of predetrmined commands.

  -r|--run= n1 n2 ...      Run the pre-defined command <n> (See --list.)

  -l|--list                List pre-defined commands

  -a|--auto                List any command(s) automatically run

                          after the --setup command(s) are started.

                          unless the "noauto" optiom of "--setup" is used.



EOF

  exit 0

  fi

#elif

  if [[ "${lc}" =~ ^-+l ]]

  then

    for (( i=1; i<=${#CMD[@]}; ++i ))

    do

      echo "  $i = ${CMD[$i]}" >&1

    done

    echo "" >&1

    exit 0

  fi

#elif

  if [[ "${lc}" =~ ^-+a ]]

  then

    for (( i=1; i<=${#AUTO[@]}; ++i ))

    do

      echo "  ${AUTO[$i]}" >&1

    done

    echo "" >&1

    exit 0

  fi

#else return

}

# Function to run a command in as a detached process

dispatch()

{

  echo -n '"'${1}'"' >&1

  if ( [ -n "${*}" ] && [ -n "$(type ${1})" ] )

  then

    "$*" &>/dev/null &

    job=$!

    disown

    echo " started as process #${job}" >&1

  else

    echo " does not appear to be a valid command." >&1

  fi

}

#

# Main program

#

# Initialize CMD and AUTO

CMD=(  [1]="konsole" [2]="google-chrome" [3]="gkrellm" )

AUTO=( [1]="Update --refresh" )

# Do we have any help arguments?

help "${*}"

# Convert the first argument to lowercase

lc=${1,,?}

# Do we have the "--setup" option?

if [[ "${lc}" =~ ^-+s ]]

then

  # dispatch all the commands in the CMD array

  for (( i=1; i<=${#CMD[@]}; ++i ))

  do

    dispatch ${CMD[${i}]}

  done

  # If the "noauto" option is not used, dispatch all commands in the AUTO array

  if ![[ "${*,,}" =~ ^-+s.*=?[[:space:]]*n ]]

  then

    for (( i=1; i<= ${#AUTO[@]}; ++i ))

    do

      dispatch ${AUTO[${i}]}

    done

  fi

  exit 0

fi

#

# Not an "--setup" command. Is it a --run command?

if [[ "${lc}" =~ ^-+r ]]

then

  # Set the initial number of arguments to consume to 2

  j=2

  # The user may wik to start a subset of the available commands

  # so we need to support "--run 1 3", etc.

  while [ $# -gt 0 ]

  do

    cmd=${CMD[${!j}]}

    if [[ -z "${cmd}" ]]

    then

      echo "\"${!j}\" is not a valid command number."

      help "-l"

    fi

    # Get rid of the processed arguments

    shift $j

    # and reduce the number of arguments to 1

    j=1

    dispatch "${cmd}"

  done

  exit 0

fi

# If we get here, then assume that ${@} is a (single) command to be dispatched

dispatch ${@}