Target Path in .desktop shortcuts?

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
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1

Hi! I’m trying to add shortcuts to launch scripts for various game mods (IW4x, Ship of Harkanian) to my application menu in Bazzite.
One mod is an extension-less script and the other is an AppImage.
I created a .desktop shortcut and got it added to my Menu.
Example:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Name=Ocarina of Time (Ship of Harkanian)
Icon=/home/addie/icons/ocarina.png
Exec="/home/addie/Games/Ship_of_Harkanian/soh.appimage"

The problem is, it launches the script/appimage somehow separate from its source folder, which breaks the program.
I found the “Path” variable from the Arch wiki, so I added a line of

Path="/home/addie/Games/Ship_of_Harkanian"

But now I get an error about “WorkingDirectory= expects an absolute path or ‘~’”.
I tried removing the path from the exec location so it was just path, then exec=filename, but then it couldn’t find the file at all.
I feel like I’m very close to getting this working, but I can’t figure out why the working Path option is broken.
Any advice?

Bazzite Linux.

Here’s the current state of my two .desktop files:
1

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Terminal=true
Name=MW2-iW4x
Icon=/home/addie/icons/mw2.png
Exec="/var/home/addie/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2/alterware-launcher"
Path="/var/home/addie/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2/"
Name[en]=MW2-iW4x
Name[en_US]=MW2-iW4x
Name[en_US.UTF-8]=MW2-iW4x
Categories=Game
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
StartupNotify=false

2

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Name=Ocarina of Time (Ship of Harkanian)
Icon=/home/addie/icons/ocarina.png
Exec="/home/addie/Games/Ship_of_Harkanian/soh.appimage"
Path="/home/addie/Games/Ship_of_Harkanian"
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2

It might be as stupid as ‘absolute path needs trailing slash /’.

K3n.

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3

SOLVED!
So the problem is twofold:

  1. I need the Path=path as I expected
  2. Exec= needs to have quotes for a directory with spaces, but Path= needs to NOT have spaces.
    So this works:
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Terminal=true
Name=MW2-iW4x
Icon=/home/addie/icons/mw2.png
Exec="/var/home/addie/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2/alterware-launcher"
Path=/var/home/addie/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2/
Name[en]=MW2-iW4x
Name[en_US]=MW2-iW4x
Name[en_US.UTF-8]=MW2-iW4x
Categories=Game
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
StartupNotify=false

Thanks to marlop352 on BlueSky for figuring it out for me.

1 Like