[Solved] [5.0 Beta] No Zotero icon displayed in the application switcher (alt+tab)

cheflo

When running Zotero.desktop or zotero, there is no icon picked up by my OS and it uses a generic icon instead. The zotero desktop file specifies Icon=zotero.ico, which I can't find anywhere. If I replace that path with one to an existing image, the generic icon is still used. Is this a bug or is there something I can do to get Zotero to correctly display an icon in the application switcher?

I mostly used the Firefox version before switching to the Beta, so I can't remember if this was a problem on Zotero4 Standalone. I am on Linux with Gnome 3.22.

dstillman

There's a set_launcher_icon script in that directory that will update zotero.desktop with the full path to the icon.

(A regular executable can't have an icon, and the .desktop file needs a full path, which would be different on everyone's system, depending on where they extracted the tarball.)

(Semi-related, in build 137 and later you can symlink the .desktop file into /usr/share/applications/ or ~/.local/share/applications/ and add it to the dock from there and it'll work correctly.)

cheflo

Thanks for the reply. I believe I already tried running that script, but I gave it another go no, still with no icon (although the path is updated in the .desktop file, just as when I did it manually).

I updated to 137 and symlinked to `~/.local/share/applications/`, still no icon. Then I put my computer to sleep for a while and now the icon is there in the application switcher! If I managed to figure out more exactly what happened, I will post here.

Regarding the need for an absolute path in the .desktop file, could Zotero query its location the first time it is run? That is, just execute set_launcher_icon automatically on first run?

dstillman

Then I put my computer to sleep for a while and now the icon is there in the application switcher!

That just sounds like some Ubuntu caching stuff — nothing related to Zotero.

Regarding the need for an absolute path in the .desktop file, could Zotero query its location the first time it is run?

When I tested updating the .desktop file dynamically, it caused some weirdness with launching, though I don't remember the specifics. We can test it again, but just adding a README for Linux users who don't use a third-party package is probably sufficient.

cheflo

Yeah, I'm not on Ubuntu, but I agree that it is probably something on the OS level, potentially with Gnome.

I agree that adding a README might be the best solution, especially if the other solution was not as straightforward as expected. Thanks for adding that issue.

x_mc4

Why a symlink? I tried on Lubuntu 16.04 and it didn't work, but when i created a hardlink it worked.

drkitty28

The solution by dstillman worked great, icon now appears, but can't launch it.

drkitty28

Update, needed to correct the path in the desktop file. Now all is good.

jdpipe

After running the "set_launcher_icon" script, it might be helpful to run "sudo update-desktop-database".