How To Get Desktop Icons/Menu Items?
 

I have just installed firefox (and this has happened to me when installing other linux apps) and once I install it, I cant find it! Like I can't figure out how to get it to be on the desktop/menu! I tried kappfinder but firefox wasn't on the list!

Any help with this most likely foolish problem would be appreciated! And in the future, is it possible to have firefox have an option that says "create desktop icon" like windows does? :P

Thanks!!

PS: While i'm here, ill ask this as well: what do you think is the best email handler? I like firefox so much that I may try out thunderbird... What do you think?

You are aware that you can start firefox with typing 'firefox' on a xterminal, aren't you ?

Re: How To Get Desktop Icons/Menu Items?
 

thunderbird is a good mail handler. sylpheed is also v.good, and even lighter.

find firefox with "whereis firefox," then just add the path to whatever icon or menu item you make for it. kde probably has some menu editor function for the menu. gl

Well, on most desktop systems (I assume you are using KDE) you can right click on the desktop and choose something along the lines of "set link" sorry- I'm using icewm (no icons) and this is why there is no "create icons" in firefox- some windowmanagers don't support it.

To find firefox- whereis firefox (what distro are you using? if slackware, check out slocate) or locate firefox. Did you pay attention to where it was going to install- it told you. :)
it helps if you fill out your distro in your profile.

if you like firefox, then you might like thunderbird- they are very similar.

hope this helps!
titanium_geek

firefox shortcut
 

Ok in linux its a little different and there a few steps you can do to make it easier. First of all... open up a command prompt and type "updatedb" ( It think you have to do this as root...so either "su -" or "sudo updatedb"). Ok so once you succesfully run "updatedb" then you want to search for "firefox anywhere on your linux filesystem" so then run the command "locate firefox". That will probably spit a pretty big list of locations but thats what you want. So look for something like ".../firefox-install/firefox" or something like that. If you have trouble finding it let me know and I'll try to give better instructions...but you should be able to find the firefox executable (what you're looking for to make a link to).

so after you find the firefox executable you want to make a shortcut on your desktop to it. So you should be able to right click on your desktop and select "create new shortcut" or link or whatever. So when that window pops up place the path to the firefox executable that you found in the link to the application text box...then you should be able to link to the firefox icon too (I think the filename starts with "mozicon" or something like that...but it should be in the same general location as the firefox executable). I hope you can figure out any little additional steps that you might need to do but that should be the bulk of the work. Ok? Hope that helps you out man. Let me know if you need any more help.

So thunderbird is pretty good but just make sure you tell it to leave your messages on the mail server if you don't want it to delete them. I don't personally use any sort of personal email program (I just leave it up to like GMail's website and Yahoo's website... for example). =)

weird... its telling me that the file isnt executible....

k i found the shell file in firefox-installer
and then i copied it to my desktop. It works fine except for the fact that it doens't have the firefox icon... Just a shell icon.

When i install thunderbird, since i have slackware, is there another package i should install or should i just go through the same steps as i did to install firefox?

Thanks!

firefox icon
 

so the firefox icon should just be like a directory back from the firefox binary/executable that you found and its something like "mozicon50.jpg" or .png...something like that....you should definitely be able to find it. As far as thunderbird I don't think you have to install any additional packages and yeah you might have to do the manual shortcut to it. I'm not sure. Good luck!

Right... I found the icon but how to i make the desktop shortcut USE the icon?

Thanks!

shortcut and icon
 

ok...so right click on the shortcut you created and select properties...once in that window there should be a icon button you can click on (current set to nothing/default) ... so click on that and then copy the location of the icon from your command prompt into the "search" text box that is near the top of the select an icon window. You should be all set and when you click OK or whatever you should see your pretty little firefox icon. =) Hope it works for you.