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

edited February 16, 2017
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.
  • 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.)
  • 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?
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • edited June 20, 2018
    Why a symlink? I tried on Lubuntu 16.04 and it didn't work, but when i created a hardlink it worked.
  • The solution by dstillman worked great, icon now appears, but can't launch it.
  • Update, needed to correct the path in the desktop file. Now all is good.
  • edited September 10, 2022
    After running the "set_launcher_icon" script, it might be helpful to run "sudo update-desktop-database".
Sign In or Register to comment.