AppImage apps

With AppImageLauncher installed, you click an AppImage, it is automatically integrated to ~/Applications, and desktop files are automatically created into ~/local/share/applications. But if you modify one of the AppImage-built app desktop file to correct the icon path, AppImageLauncher reverts automatically the desktop file to the original and keeps again the icon path hardcoded. It also removes the option StartupWMClass. We recommend you to remove AppImageLauncher.

1. Remove appimagelauncher via terminal;
2. Create ~/Applications/AppImages/, move all AppImages to this folder. Make all AppImages executable and trusted:

chmod a+x *.AppImage

3. Reboot;
4. Create the desktop files manually in the directory ~/.local/share/applications. Do not forget of adding the option StartupWMClass or the icon will be unrecognised or ugly. The desktop file, for example, ColourPicker.desktop, should be like:

[Desktop Entry]
Categories = Graphics;
Comment = A minimal but complete color picker
Comment[en_GB] = A minimal but complete colour picker
Exec = $HOME/Applications/AppImages/ColorPicker.AppImages
GenericName = Color Picker
GenericName[en_GB] = Colour Picker
Icon = colorpicker
Keywords = colorpicker; color-picker
Keywords[en_GB] = colourpicker; colour-picker
# MimeType = application/illustrator; application/pdf;
Name = Color Picker
Name[en_GB] = Colour Picker
StartupNotify = true
StartupWMClass = ColorPicker
Terminal = false
Type = Application
Version = 1.0
# X-AppImage-Version = 9.0
X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts = Color Picker
X-GNOME-FullName = Minimal Color Picker
X-GNOME-FullName[en_GB] = Minimal Colour Picker
X-DBUS-ServiceName = ColorPicker

And run update-desktop-database.

Tips

1. To know which StartupWMClass name, for example,

• See in bold: ColorPicker.AppImage;
• If it does not work, you need to extract the AppImage to figure the bin shell name;
• If it does not work yet, check the title name in the panel when you open the AppImage app.

2. If you are foreigner and want comment and name in your native language, you can add, for example, Comment[en_GB], GenericName[en_GB], Keywords[en_GB], Name[en_GB] and X-GNOME-FullName[en_GB]. If to Spanish, it would be [es], and to Spanish from Mexico, [es_MX].
3. The AppImage names should remain original, but if you want to rename, you are free, but for the StartupWMClass name, you need to put the original name of that AppImage as see in the item 1 above.