I have dragged the executables for Mozilla and aim and Yahoo Messenger to the desktop and clicked on "Link To"

Now when I right click and go to Properties I click on the icon and instead of a whole bunch of icons loading, nothing happens, whats up?

What desktop environment are you using? (Gnome, KDE...?)

Kde 3.0,
Also I am using the Connective Crystal Icon theme, but I am just trying to change the Individual Icons on Link To executables that I placed on my Desktop, Thanks

Does anyone know how to do this? I've tried searching these boards, but can't seem find any responses that answer this specific question. To reiterate: I did the exact same thing as frontier1 describes in the first post, and have all the executable links I want on my desktop. The thing is, every one of them appears as a gear icon. What I'd like to do is change the gear icon for (as an example) xcdroast to a CD .png, and I'd like to the icon for Evolution from the gear to the Ximian .png, and so forth, for each app.

All the .png images I want to use are in /usr/share/pixmaps, and if I right click on the gear icon for, say, xcdroast, then "Edit File Type", then click on the icon image, I can change it to something else, but then all my new desktop icons start using that new image. In other words, it seems I can change the icon that is associated with executable files, but I don't seem to be able to individually change which icon image gets used for xcdroast, which is what I'm trying to do.

Just to be extra clear: I'm not searching for additional icons or desktop themes; all I want to do is individually tailor which icon is displayed for an app when I drag it onto my desktop. What I currently get is the generic gear icon, what I'd like to do is change it to something else depending on what specific program it is.

Sorry for the long post. I'm running KDE 3.1.3 on Slack v9.0. Thanks for any recommendations -- J.W.

Any hints on how to do this? All advice welcome. Thanks -- J.W.

I too have the same trouble
dragged netscape to desktop and made the Icon look like the standard netscape one and suddenly all my executable shell scripts look like netscape

Sweet!!! The answer to this question is easier than I ever would have imagined. All you need to do is to just right click on the desktop, then click Create New / Link to Application. Fill in the name of the Shortcut you want to use, then click the (generic) icon image on the left hand side of the box. That will allow you to choose whatever icon you want - most likely you will want to click "Other icons", then browse for the directory that contains your app's icon (eg, it may be located in /usr/share/pixmaps or whatever). Anyway, the final step is to click on the Execute tab, then click on Browse and select the app's executable. Writing out these sentences actually took more time than it does to set up the icon you want to use - seriously, this is really easy.

I'm pretty stoked - this is something that has been annoying me to no end for about a month. My desktop has now been conquered!! -- J.W.

THANK YOU! J.W. you rock, thank you sooo much! :-)

pibby - you are welcome. For a while there this issue was driving me nuts, but I'm glad that the solution turned out to be so trivial. -- J.W.

I want to add my thanks J.W. I've wondered how to do this for a long time.