7

I installed Visual Studio but it doesn't show the icon of the app. So I was following this to set an icon.

When I go into /usr/share/applications I see the .desktop file of Visual Studio Code . But as I don't have access I can't edit it. So I opened terminal and tried to open it with sudo gedit. So for that first I tried to check the name with ls. But it doesn't list down the icon. Visual Studio Code in /usr/share/applications enter image description here

Why is that? How can I edit .desktop of vscode to set the icon?

pomsky
  • 68,507
Thidasa Pankaja
  • 445
  • I don't get why it doesn't show in ls command. But I changed the icon by opening the folder with sudo nautilus /usr/share/applications – Thidasa Pankaja Mar 03 '18 at 12:41
  • 2
    Maybe the actual name of the .desktop file is something completely different. The top-half of your ls-output is missing in the screenshot. – pomsky Mar 03 '18 at 12:48
  • 4
    To add to what pomsky said, each .desktop file has a Name property that can be different from the actual file name. In the terminal you will see the filename, but in Nautilus you will see the Name property (or possibly a translated version of it it). – devius Mar 03 '18 at 12:53
  • @devius +1 I have just wrote the answer in such manner. I hope it helps to clarify the problem. – N0rbert Mar 03 '18 at 12:55
  • Files/folders prefixed with . are “hidden” from ls unless the -a flag is specified. – eggyal Mar 03 '18 at 17:09
  • @eggyal It has nothing to do with that, files are of the form filename.desktop, not starting with a .. The file is not actually invisible, the name being displayed in Nautilus is different. – pomsky Mar 03 '18 at 19:09
  • 1
    Please don't post screenshots of text. The ls output should be posted as text with code formatting. – muru Mar 04 '18 at 05:56

2 Answers2

13

Instead of editing the .desktop file located at /usr/share/applications/ (can cause many issues, will be overridden after an upgrade of the associated package) you can first copy the file and paste at ~/.local/share/applications/. Then edit the copied file using gedit, sudo is not required.

Why ls doesn't list down the file:
ls lists the actual filename.desktop whereas Nautilus shows the name of the application as per the Name= field in filename.desktop. These two can be different. Here in this case Name=Visual Studio Code in the filename.desktop, but filename may be something completely different.

pomsky
  • 68,507
  • Thanks. It was a conflict between vscode icon name and vscode icon name in numix theme. Changed the icon name from code to vscode and fixed the issue.(Of course I copied it to ~/.local/share/applications/). DIdn't use a png. – Thidasa Pankaja Mar 03 '18 at 12:55
  • But why doesn't ls doesn't list down the file ? – Thidasa Pankaja Mar 03 '18 at 12:56
  • 5
    @PankajaParanavitharana ls lists the actual filename.desktop whereas Nautilus shows the name of the application as per the Name= field in filename.desktop. These two can be different. Here in this case Name=Visual Studio Code in the filename.desktop, but filename may be something completely different. – pomsky Mar 03 '18 at 13:01
7

Usually icon name in Nautilus or other file-manager opened in /usr/share/applications/ may not be equal to name of .desktop file.

The correct way is to check .desktop file contents as follows:

  1. if we know executable name (code in that case) 

    grep -ir Exec=.*code /usr/share/applications/

  2. if we know user-friendly name (Visual Studio Code)

    grep -ir Name=.*Visual /usr/share/applications/

And then you can copy this file to ~/.local/share/applications/ and edit its Icon= field here.

Also you should read .desktop file specification to know how it works.

N0rbert
  • 99,918