Display apps on unity launcher

If you have app and want to display it when search in unity launcher... you need to add an entry for it in `/usr/share/applications`

example:

/usr/share/applications$ cat idea.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Version=13.1
Name=Intellj Idea
Exec=/home/mhewedy/disk/programs/idea-IC-135.480/bin/idea.sh
Icon=/home/mhewedy/disk/programs/idea-IC-135.480/bin/idea.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Actions=
Categories=Programming
Actions=Profile;Tray;
Keywords=idea;java;intellj;ide # keywords to search with to find the app, very important


That's all!

Install PPAs on latest Ubuntu releases

Sometimes, when you have the latest release of Ubuntu, and then try to install some PPA, you cannot install at get 404 error while executing (apt-get update)

This is because, the PPA structure requires build per each release, the following image will make it clear:

Currently we have a new Release of ubuntu (14.04) with code name Trusty Tahr, but the important part here is the first part which is "trusty", but it is not found in the PPA of "fogger app".

When you try to install this app on Ubuntu 14.04, you will get 404, file not found. So here we will talk about the solution..

Regularly, you issue the following commands to install the software from the ppa:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:loneowais/fogger
$ sudo apt-get update  # here you will get the 404 error.
$ sudo apt-get install fogger # you will not be able to find the fogger to install because of the failure in the preceding step.


This is happens because when you try to add the ppa, it is added in the source list files under "trusty" which is not supported yet.
you can check the source file your self (in our case here's the source list of fogger):

$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/fogger-app-authors-ppa-trusty.list 
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/fogger-app-authors/ppa/ubuntu trusty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/fogger-app-authors/ppa/ubuntu trusty main

The workaround to do is to make your distro point to the software of the previous ubuntu release, and this by editing the source list file to point to "saucy" instead. (notice the saucy has a release in the first PPA picture of fogger)

Let's change the source list file:

$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/fogger-app-authors-ppa-trusty.list 
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/fogger-app-authors/ppa/ubuntu saucy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/fogger-app-autthors/ppa/ubuntu saucy main

(note we replaced "trusty" with "saucy", provided that "saucy" has a release in the PPA, if not try older version)

Now we can continue our installation:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install fogger


You should be able to install the software now. have fun!