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I installed GIMP with flatpak since 2.10 is not available in the software center. Now I can only start it from the console with "flatpak run org.gimp.GIMP". How do I add that flatpak GIMP to the ubuntu menu?

hleg
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  • You must be using an older release of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 19.10 and newer do have GIMP 2.10 in the repositories. – user535733 Jun 01 '20 at 10:53
  • If the flatpak does not automatically install a launcher, you need to create one yourself. A launcher is a text file with .desktop extension. See the question that I marked as a duplicate for the format of the file. Place the file in ~/.local/share/applications. It will then be picked up by the menu. – vanadium Jun 01 '20 at 11:46

1 Answers1

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If the flatpak does not automatically install a launcher, you will need to create one yourself. A launcher is a text file with a .desktop extension. Create a valid gimp.desktop file under .local/share/applications. .local is a hidden folder in your home folder. You can see it by turning "Show hidden files" on in your file manager.

The file gimp.desktop should contain:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=The GNU Image Manipulation Program
GenericName=Image Editor
Comment=Create images and edit photographs
Keywords=GIMP;graphic;design;illustration;painting;
Exec=flatpak run org.gimp.GIMP %U
Icon=gimp
Terminal=false
Categories=Graphics;2DGraphics;RasterGraphics;GTK;
StartupNotify=true

This file should cause an entry for Gimp to appear automatically in your software menu.

Some background

Launchers are text files with the .desktop extension with a format as decribed here. Launchers in the folder .local/share/applications or in /usr/share/applications will automatically be incorporated in your menu.

Launchers under .local/share/applications will provide the launchers only for you, and will take precedence over identical system wide launchers. The system wide launchers are under /usr/share/applications/. These will provide the launchers for any user.

Remarks

  • If you do not see the Gimp icon, but only generic icon, then there would be no icon for Gimp in your standard icon set. You may then download an appropriate icon file and put that in a folder such as .local/icons.
  • If you want the launcher to be available for any user on the system, move the .desktop file to /usr/share/applications. You need root permissions for this.
vanadium
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