Quick List Editor for Unity

I just ran across this new tool for Unity:

The Big Nerd Theory: Quicklist Editor for Unity Launcher

This is the perfect follow-up for my previous post about adding applications to the Dash. So, let’s dive into this new tool and do a few experiments.

The article didn’t contain the Launchpad site from what I could tell, but I think I found it here. I downloaded the program with this command:

bzr branch lp:unity-launcher-editor

Of course, I had to have bzr installed:

sudo apt-get install bzr

To run the program, you can just do this:

cd unity-launcher-editor/unitylaunchereditor
python main.py

So, I decided to try a little exercise with this new program. I have added a launcher with the “Keep In Launcher” command while it was running. The problem is that it has no icon.

I guess when I added the program to the Main Menu program, I forgot to setup the icon for it.  Anyway, I can add it easily via this new program:

And, here it is updated:

And, here is what it looks like on the launcher bar:

Now the only thing that remains is to update the icon so it looks nicer!  I need to work on my icon drawing abilities.

Next, I decided to try to quick list thing.  I found the question being referenced, and I tried the suggestion with the home folder using this tool. First, you have to select the home folder.  Then, you can add the quick list items to the list:

It didn’t work, so I did some tooling around and found that Ubuntu stores the shortcuts in ~/.local/share/applications.  Then, I was able to find that I was attempting to update the nautilus-home.desktop file.  I noticed that after tinkering around with different attempts, it wasn’t erasing all my changes.

I found a really great article that explains how to edit the file.  So, I tried to manually edit it like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Core;
Comment=Open your personal folder
Exec=nautilus --no-desktop
Icon=user-home
Name=Home Folder
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;Unity;
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
TryExec=nautilus
Type=Application
X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=Docs;
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=GNOME
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=general
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=nautilus
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=nautilus
[Docs Shortcut Group]
Exec=nautilus Documents
Name=Documents
TargetEnvironment=Unity

The following two lines were the ones that were stumping me:

OnlyShowIn=GNOME;Unity;
X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=Docs;

The OnlyShowIn option needs Unity in it. And, you need each shortcut group listed in the X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts option.

Then, I liked the tip from that article for restarting Unity without logging out and back in again:

unity --replace

That’s enough playing around for me! My biggest question is how this tool might fit in with the “Main Menu” tool. Will it replace that tool for Unity? Or, will the two tools work hand-in-hand?

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