From the mind (and hands) of Chris Gwilliams

Adding Shortcuts in Linux manually

When you get a gzipped tar file as an application (I am looking at you, Firefox Dev Edition), it is not so easy to add shortcuts for it; especially if you use a tiling window manager.

So, here is a quick reference for you (and me):

  1. Extract the folder to /opt/<APP_NAME>

  2. Create a symbolic link from the executable to /usr/local/bin

ln -sf /opt/<APP_NAME>/<EXEC_FILE> /usr/local/bin/

  1. Create a desktop file in /usr/share/applications/<APP_NAME>.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=APP_NAME
GenericName=APP_NAME
Exec=/usr/local/bin/APP_NAME
Terminal=false
Icon=/opt/APP_NAME/icon.jpg
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Network;X-Developer;
Comment=APP_NAME