How do I add a launcher in gnome on fedora 20

Question

I just installed fedora 20 with gnome. How can I add new programs that I can invoke through the visual shell? (In particular, I'd like to be able to click on an icon to run emacs).

I've installed alacarte and it has no effect (when I add an item, it doesn't appear anywhere, and cannot be found through the search).

I would prefer a visual solution, rather than futzing with files.

Answer 1

you can create a ".desktop-file" file in "~/.local/share/applications" then the specified "Icon" will show up in the shell menu

For example "Open Office 2014" launcher:

$ cat/more ~/.local/share/applications/.dekstop-file
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Open Office 2014
Comment=Open Office 2014
Exec=/home/unixmiah/Apps/actual-prog-to-exec
Icon=/home/unixmiah/Downloads/open_office_2004.png
Terminal=false

Answer 2

You can use Alacarte:

Alacarte (previously the Simple Menu Editor for GNOME or SMEG) is a menu editor for the GNOME desktop, written in Python. It has been part of GNOME since the 2.16 release.

To install, just run:

sudo yum install alacarte

Edit: If you don't see the launcher right away, try restarting Gnome Shell.

Also, make sure that the command you specify when creating the launcher exists and has executable permissions, otherwise the launcher won't be displayed.