How to Make a Launcher (Shortcut) in the New Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Dock.

I have been using Ubuntu for some time for writing Java code and for that I use Eclipse. You can install Eclipse via Ubuntu repository, but you probably don't wont to do that because the version in the Ubuntu repository is so old. And installation of Eclipse is so easy, simply download the tar archieve and decompress it to any folder of your liking and then duoble click the eclipse executable.

But after that you probably want a Launcher in the Ubuntu dock? But how do you do that? There is a build in plus icon application for that, but in that program you you can only use installed program, not random program simply unzipped on your disk.

So to make a arbitrary launcher:

1. Right click on you desktop and select 'Create Launcher...'.



2. Type in Name, Command path and optional Comment.
3. And finally click on the default icon and brows to your eclipse home folder and select icon.xpm.
4. Then move the Launcher file to ~/.local/share/applications.
5. And finally drag the Layncher file from ~/.local/share/applications and drop it on the Ubuntu dock.