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I have downloaded Aptana Studio 3 and created the following launcher item for using Alacarte:

file: alacarte-made.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Comment=
Terminal=false
Name=Aptana Studio 3
Exec=AptanaStudio3
Type=Application
Icon=/opt/Aptana-Studio-3/icon.xpm

Then, when I add the icon to the favorites and opens the Aptana Studio 3 I get two icons for it, one for launching new instances, and one for the currently running instance as per the following screenshot:

enter image description here

How do I force the application to use the same icon added to the favorites?

pomsky
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malhobayyeb
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  • Can you please specify how you installed Aptana? From the official site all I can see is a standalone zip file. (something like portable applications in windows). – hytromo Jan 29 '14 at 06:31
  • Yes, that was it. – malhobayyeb Jan 29 '14 at 06:41
  • So, how did it end up in `/opt`? Also, is it on your `$PATH`? How by specifying only `AptanaStudio3` in your desktop file it is able to run? – hytromo Jan 29 '14 at 06:42
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    I have done it, thank you. I have created a Sym Link in /usr/bin to /opt/.../aptana It was just a mater of naming issue. I had to name the .desktop and bin and link just the same :) – malhobayyeb Jan 29 '14 at 06:44
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    Please answer in detail below how you managed to solve your problem :) (I don't know, I only asked you some questions) – hytromo Jan 29 '14 at 06:46
  • So, have you solved the problem with duplicate icons? If so, please create a detailed answer. – Viktor K Feb 02 '14 at 10:25
  • I will try to do so :) I am busy these days... – malhobayyeb Feb 05 '14 at 05:00
  • This works and fixed the same problem I had with popcorn-time favorite I added to the gnome bar on ubuntu 17.04 – miguelmorales85 Mar 18 '18 at 14:45

4 Answers4

104

To save sifting through the thread mentioned by @earthmeLon, you need to do the following:

  1. Launch the application
  2. Fire up a terminal and run xprop WM_CLASS. Click on the window of the the application that is running with a duplicate icon.
  3. You'll get some output like WM_CLASS(STRING) = "Navigator", "Firefox". Choose one of the classes, eg Firefox in this example
  4. Add the class as the value of StartupWMClass in the .desktop file. For example, StartupWMClass=Firefox
  5. Save the .desktop file, close the application and re-open it. There should now only be 1 icon in the launcher
Greeso
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Erin Drummond
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    For those having the same issue on GNOME you can use MenuLibre: When editing the corresponding entry you will find a field for setting StatupWMClass in the list that shows up when clicking the "Advanced" button – conceptdeluxe Dec 10 '15 at 13:45
  • If someone is trying to handle an issue with `mendeley` executable, make sure to also edit `.../bin/install-mendeley-link-handler.sh`, because it overrides `.desktop` file on each run – MInner Nov 11 '17 at 00:26
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    **TLDR;** *.desktop filename = WM_CLASS(STRING) last item but lowercased. **Details:** I had to solve this issue while creating "Firefox Developer edition" shortcut. Naming the file "firefox.desktop" simply shadowed the standard firefox icon. Using xprop WM_CLASS and clicking the window returned WM_CLASS(STRING) = "Navigator", "Firefox Developer Edition". In the end I renamed my .desktop file as follows: mv ffde.desktop "firefox developer edition.desktop". (Another issue though, I can not right-click » addToFavorites on the icon from the gnome dock extension) – Stphane Jun 24 '18 at 10:59
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    If you don't want to / can't to modify the original .desktop file into the /usr/share/applications folder, you can copy the file to your local folder, ~/.local/share/applications, and modify the file here. So you will have a system-wide original file (probably provided by the developer/distribution) and a customized file which overrides the original file in the gnome-shell applications panel. Copying to your local folder is desirable as the file into /usr/share/applications can be reversed in the next package update. – Vinícius A. Jorge Jun 27 '18 at 22:04
  • Several apps don't have WM_CLASS, or at least xprop doesn't show it. Can it be done with another property? For example a regular expression on WM_NAME? – jws Apr 03 '19 at 13:03
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    Accept this answer already :) – Greeso Feb 05 '20 at 16:52
  • Was suffering from this for so long. This comment did it for me. Thank you! – J.J Feb 05 '20 at 22:27
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    No. Useless in Ubuntu 20 – funicorn Nov 06 '20 at 02:08
  • It still works in Gnome 3.38. – Sebastian Simon Nov 13 '20 at 00:10
  • Works ok on Ubuntu 20.04. Thanks! – Juan Ignacio Barisich Jul 02 '21 at 12:58
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    Thanks for saving me twice. I would have gave you another up-vote, but I unfortunately can't. – Greeso Mar 01 '22 at 19:06
  • What a wonderfully simple fix! I'll note, though, that when the instructions say "click on the window", they mean **on** the window. Simply switching to the application (e.g. by clicking on its app icon) isn't enough to trigger `xprop`. – Ben Blank Dec 03 '22 at 21:15
4

StartupWMClass

You can use StartupWMClass to group windows by class.

See this thread for additional information.

Community
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earthmeLon
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  • In addition, make sure: (1) There's no other desktop file for the same app, also in "AppEditor" or in "Main Menu". (2) Verify that `Exec=/path/to/app` is an absolute path. – Noam Manos Mar 30 '20 at 15:54
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I'm using Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS and I installed Firefox Developer Edition Version=109.0

I came up with same problem, Here I paste my .desktop code,

Before (Wrong):-

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Mozilla Firefox
GenericName=Web Browser
Comment=Firefox Developer Edition
Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox
Icon=/opt/firefox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;text/mml;
StartupNotify=True
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false
Version=109.0

After (Working):-

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Mozilla Firefox
GenericName=Web Browser
Comment=Firefox Developer Edition
Exec=/opt/firefox/firefox
Icon=/opt/firefox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Network;WebBrowser;
MimeType=text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;text/mml;
StartupNotify=True
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false
Version=109.0
StartupWMClass=firefox-aurora

Now its working correctly.

Hint:-

I tried all the above answers before posting my answer(this),

  1. Launch the application
  2. Fire up a terminal and run xprop WM_CLASS. Click on the window of the the application that is running with a duplicate icon.

When I run xprop WM_CLASS , I can't see any output as mentioned in those answers.

Then how do I solve this?

When I mouse over the additional app icon in taskbar, It displayed firefox-aurora

I just read the application.ini file from firefox installation folder and found RemotingName=firefox-aurora so I copied firefox-aurora name to StartupWMClass=firefox-aurora

In place of firefox-aurora I also tried firefox (because its the executable file name), but it didn't work for me.

Sudhakar Krishnan
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-2

I faced this issue when I manually installed Spring Tool Suite 4

Then, after install, I created STS.desktop in following folder of Ubuntu 20

SUKUMAR S
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