[SOLVED] Assign icons for no icon applications

since1992trying · 09-10-2010, 08:47 AM

I am using Ubuntu 10.04. There are some applications that do not have icons such as rdesktop. I use Docky and Gnome-Do. The icon on Docky looks ugly because there is no icon for rdesktop. It is a question mark in a gray box. There are some more applications that have no icon. I do not remember what there were exactly. But I remember I got confused.
Anyone knows how I can assign a icon to rdesktop? I tried to make it work. I created a launcher for rdesktop. It didn't work. I changed icon in Nautilus for /usr/bin/rdesktop with root privillege. But it didn't changed. I hope somebody solved this problem already. Thank you.

sys · 09-10-2010, 11:10 AM

You will need an svg file with an icon. You can search your system using "locate .svg | less". Once you create symbolic link or a launcher for your application or your desktop, right click on it and do Properties. On the panel "Basic" click the icon and point it to the chosen .svg file. Click open -> Close. Your icon should appear on your desktop.

since1992trying · 09-10-2010, 11:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sys

You will need an svg file with an icon. You can search your system using "locate .svg | less". Once you create symbolic link or a launcher for your application or your desktop, right click on it and do Properties. On the panel "Basic" click the icon and point it to the chosen .svg file. Click open -> Close. Your icon should appear on your desktop.

First, I created two symbolic links

Code:

young@eeyes:~/Desktop$ ln -s /usr/bin/rdesktop .
young@eeyes:~/Desktop$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/rdesktop rdesktop-root
young@eeyes:~/Desktop$ ls
rdesktop  rdesktop-root
young@eeyes:~/Desktop$ ./rdesktop 192.168.123.172 &
[1] 3062
young@eeyes:~/Desktop$ ./rdesktop-root 192.168.123.172 &
[2] 3063

I also tried to change icon with root privilege by running

Code:

sudo nautilus /usr/bin/ --browser

And I edit property of rdesktop. But changing icon in the property window doesn't work as shown in my third attachment. Did I do wrong something? Is there no way to make this work? Thank you for your reply

since1992trying · 09-11-2010, 06:03 AM

I found how to do it partially after googling many web pages. I do not know the mechanism of icons in Debian or Ubuntu system. So, I hope somebody give me links explaining it.

I copy a appropriate icon from internet to /usr/share/pixmaps/desktop.png. And, I went to /usr/share/applications directory. I copied one of .desktop files to rdesktop.desktop. Since I didn't know how .desktop entry works, I just tried several times. And I got finally one works

Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=rdesktop
GenericName=rdesktop
Comment=linux command for remote desktop
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Network;
Exec=rdesktop %U

Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true

Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/rdesktop.png

I also tried to get different icons for each rdesktop because in many cases I got confused which ones for what. But I couldn't make it. If I get understood how the icon system works in Ubuntu, I will write a thread about icons.

It is funny to me that I couldn't find any good help for this simple issue. Don't you need icons for some applications that do not comes with icons such as rdesktop? Thank you for you guys help all the time.

sys · 09-14-2010, 05:41 AM

What happens if you actually click on the area I circled in the attached image?
I get the dialog box where I'm able to select the icon I wanna have for the link/launcher.

since1992trying · 09-24-2010, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sys

What happens if you actually click on the area I circled in the attached image?
I get the dialog box where I'm able to select the icon I wanna have for the link/launcher.

I apology for little late reply. I was busy in moving to Arch with KDE. Anyway, I was able to change icons for launcher that I made as you suggested. However, the changed icons were not displayed in Docky, AWN and task switcher. I had hard time when I had several windows that have no icons since I could not recognize which icons indicating what while I am navigating icons in task switcher - or you might call this windows switcher.
Now, I know how to assign an icon for applications came with no icon. There is no problem. One lucky thing is that way worked in KDE environment in Arch.
I spent much time to get succeed for this. I wrote how I solved this problem. Please let me know if you need help in this issue. Thank you.