How can launchers be added to and removed from the Unity dash?

Solution 1:

Don't know about scenario 1, haven't any HIB games, - I'd look thru any of the possible places - /usr/local/share;` ~/.local/share; /opt/

As far as 2 - try opening the .desktop you created in a text editor (your launcher is just a .desktop), & add a Categories= line

Something like this should suffice -

Categories=Game;

Typically game .desktops use this but the above should be ok

Categories=GNOME;GTK;Game;

A log out/in should show in Dash filter > games, if not then re-open the launcher in your text editor & try adding a %U to end of the Exec= line leaving a space after what's currently there. (shouldn't be needed in these cases

Solution 2:

Dash launchers are located in either /usr/share/applications/ or $HOME/.local/share/applications and have a .desktop extensions. To remove from the dash just delete the corresponding .desktop file from either of these folders. To add a launcher just create a new text document, save it with a suitable name (NAME.desktop) in one of those folders and here is a sample of what needs to go in it from the Chess game launcher file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Chess
Comment=Play the classic two-player boardgame of chess
Version=1.0
Exec=/usr/games/glchess
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=GNOME;Game;BoardGame;
StartupNotify=true
Icon=gnome-glchess
MimeType=application/x-chess-pgn;
G    enericName=3D Chess Game
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=GNOME
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=gnome-games
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=BugBuddyBugs
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Version=3.2.1
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=gnome-games