Adding Applications under Gnome 3.x

Adding Applications to the Activity Area under Gnome 3.x

Sometimes, normally when you install an application from the web rather than the Software Centre, you cannot see that application in the Activities Area. To correct this, you need to install an additional Gnome utility called alacarte (-if it is not installed already). This can be either be installed from your Software Centre or from the Command Line, for example (in Fedora):

sudo yum install alacarte

Or, in Debian-based Distros, you can use:

sudo apt-get install alacarte

Running the 'alacarte' Utility

To add an application to the Gnome Activities Area, start the alacarte utility from the Command Line:

alacarte

A window will open up:

Click the category to which you wish to add the application, for example, "Games", then click the "Add" button:

A new dialogue will open up, enter the application details, then click "OK":

You should now see the application listed:

Exit alacarte by clicking on the "Close" button.

If you now go back into the Activities Area and search for the application name you entered, you should see the new entry listed:

References and Further Reading:

• 1 : How to Create a Custom Launcher in Unity on Ubuntu 11.10 (Matt Woodward)

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