I Created A Desktop File for Linux Users

• May 26, 2019 - 03:54
Reported version
3.0
Priority
P3 - Low
Type
Performance
Frequency
Once
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Reproducibility
Always
Status
closed
Regression
No
Workaround
Yes
Project
MuseScore

One of the issues with MuseScore when it installs via AppImage is that it does not create a desktop icon; to remedy this, I created a desktop file that a Linux user can place in their /usr/share/applications folder.

Please look at the file before adding it to the applications folder as you need to include the path to the appimage on your computer and provide a MuseScore logo image (check MuseScore's GitHub for this).

Hope this helps with development! Perhaps this can be added to future iterations of MuseScore, Devs?

Here is the file

[Desktop Entry]
Name=MuseScore
Comment=Create, play and print beautiful sheet music
Exec=
Icon=
Type=Application
Categories=Music;Application;
[NewWindow Shortcut Group]
StartupWMClass="mscore-portable", "MuseScore3"

Comments

• May 29, 2019 - 09:47
Priority ⇒ P3 - Low

Thanks for sharing this! You may also want to check out the existing desktop file template (see this file) but it certainly is not used when packaging MuseScore in an AppImage.

By the way, automatically adding a proper .desktop file to the relevant location (if user asks that) may indeed be a good idea, maybe that really should be added to some next release. I saw some other applications that are distributed as portable packages doing this so we can do the same here.

Still it is definitely not the most critical issue at the moment so I am putting a "low" priority on it for now.

Reply

• May 29, 2019 - 18:34

Hey dmitrio95, I didn't even see that desktop template! Thanks for sharing it.

I agree - I know many programs (Appimages included) that would ask me to install it to where I can easily access it.

Low priority makes sense; I just wanted to make this post in case anyone had a difficult time accessing musescore like I did initially. : )

Take care!

Reply

• May 29, 2019 - 19:49

Well, yes, I tried running ./MuseScore-3.1.0-x86_64.AppImage install and it really copied an AppImage to ~/.local/bin/ and added a proper .desktop file. I didn't know that, thanks! It looks like I should read instructions better :)

Reply

• Dec 4, 2020 - 02:04
Status active ⇒ closed

Closing since we already have a desktop file that does get installed when you run the AppImage with the install option:

./MuseScore*.AppImage install

Reply