Intellij launcher doesn't work on unity?

Under /usr/share/applications I created:

intellij.desktop:

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Exec=/path/To/idea.sh"
Name[en_US]=Intellij
Name=Intellij
Icon=/path/to/intellij.png

Then I drag it to the Unity launcher bar. I click it, but nothing happens. How can I make it work?

JAVA_HOME is set correctly, other Java apps (like Eclipse) work and click idea.sh.


My configuration:

  • Ubuntu 12.10 64-bit (Desktop)
  • Oracle JDK 1.7
  • IntelliJ Community 12

You can use "tools" > "create desktop entry", in IntelliJ itself.


  1. Open a terminal, in /path/idea/bin folder
  2. Start IntelliJ with ./idea.sh
  3. Tools -> Generate Desktop Entry
  4. Close IntelliJ
  5. In the terminal, start nautilus as admin (gksudo nautilus)
  6. Go to /usr/share/applications
  7. Drag the new icon for IntelliJ to your launcher

event with create desktop entry there still an error, because the launcher is not reading JDK_HOME configuration.

so after creating the desktop entry , right click on the launcher and select properties then add bash -i before double quote in command input text exp :command [ bash -i " /home/me/ides/idea/bin/idea.sh" %f ]


For starting IntelliJ IDEA from launcher
1. Create an idea.desktop file and include the following in it.

    [Desktop Entry]
    Name=IntelliJ IDEA
    Comment=IntelliJ IDEA IDE
    Exec=/{installation directory}/idea-IC-129.713/bin/idea.sh
    Icon=/{installation directory}/idea-IC-129.713/bin/idea.png
    Terminal=false
    StartupNotify=true
    Type=Application
    Categories=Development;IDE;


2. Add permission file to be executable (right click on file in permissions tab and check the execute permission) [or sudo chmod +x idea.desktop]
3. Copy that file to /usr/share/applications (in the command line, do sudo cp idea.desktop /usr/share/applications)
4. Copy that file to ~/.local/share/applications (command line, sudo cp idea.desktop ~/.local/share/applications)

Now check in dash.