Q100521: How to create a desktop shortcut for Foundry software on Linux operating systems

Follow
  1. Foundry
  2. General Support
  3. General Help

SUMMARY

When installing either Mari or Modo on the Linux platform, a .desktop shortcut (aka desktop configuration file) is not created; this is also occurs with Nuke versions 12.0 and up. Additionally, when launching the application, an icon is not present on the launcher/taskbar or available to search from the OS menu. This article will explain how to create a desktop shortcut for Foundry software.

MORE INFORMATION

In Linux, the Mari and Modo applications are generally run by using a command in Terminal, so the desktop icons were not implemented. This does not occur on the Windows and macOS platforms, as they have shortcut and taskbar/launcher icons.

NOTE: The information below is relative to testing with GNOME on Rocky 9, CentOS 7 and Ubuntu 16.04; other Desktop Environments may vary, depending on the Linux install. Other Desktop Environments can include GNOME, KDE, MATE, etc.

Desktop shortcuts can be created with an icon when following the steps below. A working knowledge of a text editor and how to navigate directory locations in Linux are needed. After performing the following example, a .desktop configuration file with an icon for launching Mari 7.0v1will be created. You can repeat this process for Modo or other product versions as needed. For Nuke, the steps outlined below are the same, but the contents of the .desktop file are slightly different. Please see below for an example in Nuke.

  1. Install Modo to the /usr/local directory, to be displayed as /usr/local/Mari7.0v1.[buildnumber]

  2. Download the Mari.png located at the end of this article. Place these file locally on your machine. Alternatively, for Mari and Nuke, you can navigate to where the app icons are located. This is in /Media/Icons for Mari, and /plugins/icons for Nuke.

  3. Launch any text editor to create a new file, and add the following lines:

    [Desktop Entry]
    Name=Mari7.0v1
    Comment=Mari desktop shortcut!
    Exec=/usr/local/Mari7.0v1/mari --name "Mari7.0v1"
    StartupWMClass=MARI
    Terminal=false
    Type=Application
    Categories=Qt;Graphics;3DGraphics;
    Icon=/usr/local/Mari7.0v1/Media/Icons/Mari.png


    - Please view the Further Reading section for understanding what the above line items result in, and why they’re used.

  4. Save the file as “Mari7.0v1.desktop” and place it in the /usr/share/applications directory. This will create a shortcut that can be found in the Search bar of the OS. 



Regarding shortcuts/icons that are not currently implemented in the Nuke12.0+ releases:

The .desktop file for Nuke 12.0+ is slightly different to the Mari/Modo .desktop file as shown above. In this case, the file should read as follows:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Nuke 15.1v3
Comment= Nuke desktop shortcut
Exec="/usr/local/Nuke15.1v3/Nuke15.1" -b %f
Terminal=false
MimeType=application/x-nuke;
Icon=/usr/local/Nuke15.1v3/plugins/icons/NukeApp48.png
Type=Application
Categories=Graphics;2DGraphics;RasterGraphics;FLTK;

 NOTE: Don't forget to add the .desktop file extension when saving the file, and place it in the /usr/share/applications directory. Doing this will create a shortcut that can be found in the Search bar of the OS (tested with GNOME). 

 

FURTHER READING

The following information will explain the line items entered in step 2 above, for the Mari7.0v1.desktop shortcut. Additional information regarding these lines can be found in the “Links” section below:

[Desktop Entry]:
This is the Group header of the file. It defines the shortcut-type and allows it to be used as such.

Name=Mari7.0v1:
This is a string for the name of the file that is given when created.

Comment=Mari desktop shortcut!:
This is a tooltip comment for when viewing the Properties of the file.

Exec=/usr/local/Mari7.0v1/mari --name "Mari7.0v1":
This is a required line that specifies what command to launch Modo with. Additional command line flags can be added to the shortcut, such as -safemode -dbononconfig. More information on these can be found in the Links section.

StartupWMClass=MARI:
This flag maps the window for Modo from the application’s launch, allowing the window to display the icon and remain on the taskbar after launching.

Terminal=false:
The Terminal false/true argument is used in deciding if the application is run through Terminal.

Type=Application:
The “Type” flag designates the type of file the shortcut should imitate. In this case, we specify an “application”, as we are running a piece of software.

Categories=Qt;Graphics;3DGraphics;
The Categories flag is used to classify menu items. This ensures that it will show up in a section of the application menu dedicated to the specified category.

Icon=/usr/local/Mari7.0v1/Media/Icons/Mari.png:
This identifies the icon to be used for the desktop shortcut. If you have downloaded the Mari/Modo .png files and placed them locally on your machine, you will need to change this path to reflect where your .png files are located. 


USEFUL LINKS 

 

FURTHER HELP 

If you have any issues with creating a desktop shortcut in Linux, please raise a Support request and let us know more about the problem you are encountering, and the troubleshooting steps you have taken so far. 

For more information on how to open a Support request, please refer to this article: Q100064: How to raise a support ticket. 

 

Attachments:

We're sorry to hear that

Please tell us why