Adding a launcher to GNOME panel (Thunderbird 17)

So running a new install of Fedora 17 and have a need to use the very latest version of thunderbird (17) and downloaded the binaries which I'm able to run from the terminal without a problem. but have having difficulty running the app from the GNOME menu.

/usr/share/application/thunderbird.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Thunderbird
Comment=Mail Client
Exec=thunderbird %U
Icon=/opt/thunderbird/chrome/icons/default/default256.png
Path=/opt/thunderbird
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=GNOME;Application;Office;
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;


I've played around with the path and I think I just need add an $path env. I've tried hosting the binaries in /usr/share/thunderbird and reflecting that in exec=/usr/share/thunderbird/thunderbird and exec=/usr/share/thunderbird/thunderbird %U also excluding the full path in exec and adding path= to reflect the same (as above)

Is there something obvious I'm missing?

The error I'm getting is "failed to execute child process "thunderbird" (no such file or directory) anytime I try to launch the app from the GNOME menu

I was also looking for something more detailed in the messages or any log but I don't find anything that corresponds to this error at all.

Any help is appreciated

Thanks

Hi,

The binary should be marked executable. Can you run the binary from the command line? what happens if you do:

Code:

---

/usr/share/thunderbird/thunderbird

---

That assumes that the binary named thunderbird is in the directory /usr/share/thunderbird/. If that works, then you should be able to put that exact command after Exec= in your .desktop file. I never use Path= in my .desktop files, I've always used full path to binaries in Exec= and that works fine.

You should leave the binaries wherever you (or the Thunderbird installer, if there is one) put it. You can always put a symlink in /usr/local/bin pointing to it, too.

You can also use the alternatives command (on RH/Fedora-based systems) to manage symlinks for applications.

Note: this won't help with running the binary, but there is a command called desktop-file-validate which will check the syntax of your .desktop file for you.