How to creat a launcher that requires your Terminal to be at the target directory

[shag00]

Because we live in a Windows world and many of us are less than titillated by that fact we find ourselves running Ubuntu, trying to run Windows programs. A number of programs which we launch from the CLI require that the terminal's command prompt be the same as the target directory address. This can cause a bit of frustration when we want to create a quick launcher and find that the path line in the .desktop file we are told to create is about as useful as tits on a bull. So what I want to share is how to overcome this problem in one line in your quick launcher without having to do anything else.

In this example I have Mono installed on my PC which you can see as .Net for linux. It allows me to run .Net programs natively on Ubuntu. The typical usage command is: mono package.exe, where package.exe is usually inside a portable Windows program. I have downloaded my portable Windows program, called SubtitleEdit, which uses .Net, into a folder called Windows Portable Programs. To run the program from the terminal I need to navigate to the folder where it resides and enter mono SubtitleEdit.exe.

me@ubuntu:~/Windows Portable Programs/SubtitleEdit$ mono SubtitleEdit.exe


A far easier way to launch this program would be to just set up a desktop launcher as follow:

[Desktop Entry]
Exec=sh -c 'cd /home/me/"Windows Portable Programs"/SubtitleEdit; mono SubtitleEdit.exe'
Icon=/home/me/Pictures/icons/SE.bmp
Name=Subtitle Edit
StartupNotify=true
StartupWMClass=subtitleedit.exe
Terminal=false
Type=Application
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false

Just copy the above, only change the Exec= line and save to ~/Desktop. I hope this saves you the many hours it took me to discover this quite simple and elegant solution to quick launch a program.

[kubicle]

You can do that, but you should also be able to use the Path= key in the .desktop file to define a working directory (or is that not working for this program for some reason):

[Desktop Entry]
Exec=mono SubtitleEdit.exe
Path=[COLOR=#3E3E3E]/home/me/"Windows Portable Programs"/SubtitleEdit[/COLOR]
Icon=/home/me/Pictures/icons/SE.bmp
Name=Subtitle Edit
StartupNotify=true
StartupWMClass=subtitleedit.exe
Terminal=false
Type=Application
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false

The .desktop spec: https://specifications.freedesktop.o...ec-latest.html

Alternatively, you could try running 'mono /home/me/"Windows Portable Programs"/SubtitleEdit/SubtitleEdit.exe', defining a path there. There is obviously nothing wrong in using sh -c and cd, either, especially if the other methods aren't working with mono (of which I have no idea, i've never run anything with mono)

[shag00]

As I said in my post, setting the Path= key as you have shown here does not work.

I am stretching here but I think that exec line, 'mono /home/me/"Windows Portable Programs"/SubtitleEdit/SubtitleEdit.exe', runs into problems when running Wine programs.

[kubicle]

As I said in my post, setting the Path= variable as you have shown here does not work.

Ah, so you did, I missed it. Tested a test .desktop file with a Path= key and it seemed to work fine (running a simple ls command on a specified directory), but it might be that it doesn't work quite as expected with GUI programs.
How about the other option: Exec=mono /home/me/"Windows Portable Programs"/SubtitleEdit/SubtitleEdit.exe

EDIT:

I am stretching here but I think that exec line, 'mono /home/me/"Windows Portable Programs"/SubtitleEdit/SubtitleEdit.exe', runs into problems when running Wine programs.

Possible, but like I said, no harm in using what you have (nothing wrong with sticking to something that is working)

EDIT2: This does suggest that it should work, but as I do not use mono I can't guarantee it:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1192...-mono-exe-file

[shag00]

Exec=mono /home/me/"Windows Portable Programs"/SubtitleEdit/SubtitleEdit.exe, works.