How to specify which terminal is used by gtk-launch

Question

As discussed here, gtk-launch can launch applications either directly or in a terminal window, depending on whether the .desktop file specifies that the application runs in a terminal. It seems to me that this terminal is not the x-terminal-emulator from the alternative system (it doesn't change when I update the alternatives).

Is there a way to specify which terminal emulator gtk-launch should use?

Answer 1

Doesn't seem to be possible without workaround.

https://askubuntu.com/a/294430

Gtk-launch (a part of gtk) is not related to x-terminal-emulator at all. In my case glib2 2.68.0 (behind gtk-launch) has its terminal choosing logic hardcoded in prepend_terminal_to_vector() in gio/gdesktopappinfo.c.

# Most preferred
gnome-terminal -- APP ARG1 ARG2 ...

# Then
mate-terminal  -x APP ARG1 ARG2 ...
xfce4-terminal -x APP ARG1 ARG2 ...

# After that
tilix       -e APP ARG1 ARG2 ...
konsole     -e APP ARG1 ARG2 ...
nxterm      -e APP ARG1 ARG2 ...
color-xterm -e APP ARG1 ARG2 ...
rxvt        -e APP ARG1 ARG2 ...
dtterm      -e APP ARG1 ARG2 ...

# Last resort
xterm -e APP ARG1 ARG2 ...

A dirty workaround on my machine

I want to invoke alacritty -e ...

1. Create a dummy gnome-terminal (α)

sudo install -vDm755 /dev/null /usr/local/bin/gnome-terminal

2a. If you do NOT have gnome-terminal installed, put the following into α

#!/bin/bash

[ x"$1" = x"--" ] || { exec /usr/bin/gnome-terminal "$@"; exit 0; }

shift

TITLE="$(basename "$1")"
if [ -n "$TITLE" ]; then
  /usr/bin/alacritty -t "$TITLE" -e "$@"
else
  /usr/bin/alacritty             -e "$@"
fi

2b. If you have gnome-terminal installed, put the following into α

#!/bin/bash

[ x"$1" = x"--" ] || exit 1

shift

TITLE="$(basename "$1")"
if [ -n "$TITLE" ]; then
  /usr/bin/alacritty -t "$TITLE" -e "$@"
else
  /usr/bin/alacritty             -e "$@"
fi

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