So the next stable version of Ubuntu 19.04 has now been release and to be honest it’s looking pretty good, however, the way you add a desktop shortcut to an application has changed slightly so after a bit of playing about I have managed to work out how to do it and I think it’s worth a share.
Locate the applications folder
The applications folder is in exactly the same place as in previous versions of Ubuntu. The location is:
Other Locations \ Comuter \ usr \ share \ applications
Here is where the first difference is noticeable. In Ubuntu 18.04 you will see nice icons relating to applications installed on the system. In Ubuntu 19.04 you see this:
It’s not pretty, however, it is what it is. The easiest way to find the application is to search for it by name. In this instance I am going to search for the Firefox application as illustrated below:
And copy a shortcut over to the desktop.
It’s still not pretty and if you try to click on it, rather than getting a prompt asking if you want to trust the application, you get this:
Not much good is it?. Well here’s the trick. If you right click on the icon the usual context menu will appear. About mid-way down the menu options you will see the following:
Allow Launching
As soon as you click on this option you magically get the Firefox application icon:
Click on the shortcut and the application opens…. simples…
Conclusion
So it is possible to get desktop icons back onto your Ubuntu desktop. It’s not pretty how, as a user you are forced to jump through several hoops to get a desktop application Icon but it does seem to work, and for me, it’s another step forward before I fully migrate to Ubuntu 19.10.