How to configure the quicklaunch plasmoid (aka widget) so as to fix a problem with missing icons and other issues.

.desktop files in kde4

First it seems that the quicklaunch keeps a link to several desktop files – the desktop icons and quicklaunch configuration are pretty opaque really but I do like the idea that kickoff (application menu) items, quicklaunch icons and desktop icons all share a common pool of files that are simply linked elsewhere. This means that searches in the K menu (application menu) will find .desktop files (application launching files) that aren’t actually in the menu.

Quicklaunch config

quick launch icons

Anyway, I digress. The files appear to be from /home/$USER/.local/share/applications/ , where $USER is your user login name. Thus by opening /home/alicious/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop and altering the Icon= line directly I was able to update the icon pointed to from the quicklaunch. It didn’t resolve immediately but a logout-login cycle fixed it up for me.

I searched on linuxquestions, ubuntuforums and forums.kde.org and couldn’t find this info so hope it helps.

Example firefox.desktop file

This is the file as fixed:

[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Application;Network;
Comment[en_US]=Browse the World Wide Web
Comment=Browse the World Wide Web
Exec=firefox -ff-profile %u
GenericName[en_US]=Web Browser
GenericName=Web Browser
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/firefox-3.5.png
MimeType=text/html;image/png;image/jpeg;image/gif;application/xml;application/xml;application/xhtml+xml;application/vnd.mozilla.xul+xml;application/rss+xml;application/rdf+xml;
Name[en_US]=Firefox Web Browser (3.5)
Name=Firefox Web Browser (3.5)
NoDisplay=false
Path=
StartupNotify=true
StartupWMClass=Firefox
Terminal=false
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
Version=1.0
X-DBUS-ServiceName=
X-DBUS-StartupType=
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=
X-MultipleArgs=false

Happy to receive questions in the comments as long as you’re not expecting a perfect answer ;0)>