[SOLVED] Launcher problem

[bartgol]

Hi all, I got a problem trying to add a luncher in my application menu. I installed netgen and it works fine. If I try to launch it from the terminal like "$ netgen", it does work. It also works if I double click on the program icon in its folder. But when I try to make a launcher in the menu, it doesn't. I tried both Application (nothing happens) and Application in Terminal (I see a window flash for a second and then it disappears).

Any idea of where is the problem?

[Dapper Dan]

Hmmm... Maybe instead of just inputting "netgen," in the launcher, you may need to include the full path to where the executable is.

[bartgol]

Already tried. Doesn't work.

[Dapper Dan]

Did you try right clicking on the executable and doing "Make Link" and dragging the link to your desktop?

[bartgol]

Uh, I didn't think to that. Let's see...


...nope, doesn't work. It works only if the link is in the same folder of the program.

[Dapper Dan]

You might have to create a little shell script to initiate it. Open a new file with your favourite editor and do something along the lines of:

#!/bin/bash

#This here's my little script to start netgen

cd path/to/netgen/directory &&
./netgen_executable

Save it as something like "start_netgen" and make it executable:

chmod +x start_netgen

...and use start_netgen in the launcher. Hard to really know as I'm unfamiliar with netgen and don't know how it is started. There may be a better way... just trying to come up with ideas...

[bartgol]

This is a good idea and it works. It's not the cleanest solution ever, but when you don't know where the problem is, there's not that much you can do...

Thanks for you help!!

[Dapper Dan]

A cleaner way might be to symlink the executable to /usr/bin if there isn't one there already. Something like...

ln -s /path/to/netgen/netgen.sh /usr/bin/netgen

Then you could use just "netgen" in the launcher...

[bartgol]

True, that's cleaner. Sold! ^_^