Is there any way of creating app launching shortcuts in manajro xfce

[Sourav05]

I wanted to know that how can i create dedicated shortcuts for launching different applications
I wanted a way to launch apps through keyboard

[kerry_s]

right click the desktop> create launcher
or if it’s a app installed
right click app in menu> add to desktop
forgot, if you right click a launcher you can> edit launcher

[nikgnomic]

xfce:exo:desktop-item-edit [Xfce Docs]
exo-desktop-item-edit allows a user to easily create and modify application launchers, or .desktop files in a GUI.

[Sourav05]

Thanks!

[Sourav05]

Thank you

[manJO]

I’ve created a bunch of these application calling keyboard shortcuts, they are AWESOME!! I love Manjaro’s keyboard settings GUI from the whisker menu, you can also access others from the Windows Settings Manager (also accessible from the whisker menu). This is on XFCE, I don’t know what version of Manjaro you’re using, so it might be slightly different.

[Sourav05]

Actually i wanted to know about how to add those keyboard shortcuts
as in in the keyboard > application shortcut what should i put as command to start some apps. I don’t know much about how to use command lines to start apps…

[manJO]

Oh I see, usually you can just type in the particular name of the application, this works for a majority of applications, but sometimes it’s a bit more extensive.

What application specifically are you trying to create a shortcut for? Perhaps I could help you out.

[Sourav05]

Whatsapp for linux
Protonvpn
zoom
and ms teams
all packages are aur
Thank you for your patience and time

[archisman]

Go to /usr/share/applications, and you would find a lot of .desktop files. Open the .desktop file of your favorite program in a text editor, and you would find the command to start the application in the Exec entry.

For example, this is the .desktop file of blanket (I removed some entries for simplicity).

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Blanket
Comment=Listen to different sounds
Exec=blanket
Icon=com.rafaelmardojai.Blanket
Terminal=false
Keywords=Concentrate;Focus;Noise;Productivity;Sleep;
Categories=AudioVideo;Audio;GTK;
StartupNotify=true
# Translators: Do NOT translate or transliterate this text (these are enum types)!
X-Purism-FormFactor=Workstation;Mobile;

Notice Exec=blanket. You need to enter the command blanket to start this application.

[manJO]

Oh wow, this does me one better. I wasn’t aware of this feature. Thanks!

[Sourav05]

Yeah I tried this and it works!!
Thanks!!

[manJO]

Interesting, it seems that alot of those have some complications from them.

I don’t use whatsapp, but found a somewhat extensive discussion on how to set it up for terminal use here:

r/commandline - Whatsapp via the command line ?

This application also apparently allows you to call whatsapp from the terminal, and thusly could be used to open it up using keyboard shortcuts:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/python-yowsup/

ProtonVPN I do have, but I don’t think you can set it up for a keyboard command as it requires root privileges to run (basically anything that requires root privileges to run you can’t hotkey as far as I know).

Zoom apparently is easier. This is another one I don’t use but from what I’ve gathered you can call it from the command line by simply typing ‘zoom’ into your terminal emulator and you’re set. Thusly setting up “zoom” into your keyboard shortcuts followed by the hotkeys you wish to associate it with when prompted to enter them should work.

MS teams also seems to be callable from the terminal, although i couldn’t find the exact command. Do a bit of research, google around and see what you come up with, usually these sort of things are made to be as intuitive as possible and you might be able to call it simply by typing in “teams”

Hopefully that helps. ProtonVPN in particular is callable from the command line, but I haven’t found a way to hotkey it yet as I said before it requires root privileges to run and I don’t think you can do that with hotkeys. I could be wrong though, I’m somewhat of a noob myself.

[Sourav05]

I was able to launch protonvpn with the method provided by @archisman
you can also give it a shot

[manJO]

Nice. I’ll have to try that out! Again, thanks to @archisman
I learn something new from these forums every day! Super awesome.

Does it still prompt you for your root password?