How to make an app with Terminal=true have it's own taskbar entry in task manager

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1

Consider a .desktop file for a TUI application like btop:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Version=1.0
Name=btop++
GenericName=System Monitor
GenericName[it]=Monitor di sistema
GenericName[zh_TW]=系統監視器
Comment=Resource monitor that shows usage and stats for processor, memory, disks, network and processes
Comment[it]=Monitoraggio delle risorse: mostra utilizzo e statistiche per CPU, dischi, rete e processi
Comment[zh_TW]=顯示處理器、主記憶體、磁碟、網路與進程的使用與統計數據的資源監視器應用程式
Icon=btop
Exec=btop
Terminal=true
Categories=System;Monitor;ConsoleOnly;
Keywords=system;process;task
Keywords[zh_TW]=系統;進程;處理程序;任務

Terminal=true delegates window creation to the system’s default terminal emulator (konsole in KDE), resulting in this:

image

How to make an application with Terminal=true in its .desktop file have its own taskbar entry in task manager?

2

instead of using Terminal=true, change the Exec= to call up btop in a terminal like this

konsole --hold -e bash -c “btop”

3

Thanks for the reply! This isn’t achieving separate entries though, btop’s konsole window is still sharing the same entry with other konsole windows here.

4

oh, i think i misunderstood.

so what you want is a GUI .desktop file that launches btop in a terminal but lists it as your .desktop launcher in the taskmanager rather than showing it as another konsole window.

not sure how to do this.

i can make a .desktop that launches my own script with it’s own icon, but very soon after launch the script icon disappears and the terminal icon appears with the window of btop in a terminal (because that is what is actually running).

the only workaround i can think of is using a different terminal application like xterm to run btop instead so it’s a least not swimming with any of the other konsole windows you may have open.

you could even change the icon for this terminal app to the btop icon and as long as you never use that terminal app for anything else, it would be as if you had a dedicated GUI window for btop