Xubuntu - Add Application To Application Finder

I recently uninstalled Firefox from my Xubuntu 22.04 operating system because I discovered it was set up through snaps (which I hate). After downloading Firefox and extracting to my personal applications folder, which is in my customized $PATH, I discovered that it still would not show in my application finder (which is how I launch most of my applications).

This was easily resolved by creating a custom desktop entry file:

editor ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop

... and providing it the following content:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Exec=/home/stuart/data/apps/firefox/firefox-bin %u
Icon=/usr/share/icons/Papirus/32x32/apps/firefox.svg
Name=Firefox
Comment=Access to the internet.
Categories=Internet;

Change the values as appropriate to your application. E.g. you probably aren't wanting to set up Firefox.

Now the application should appear in your application finder. If not, try logging out and in again.

References

• How to add new application to XFCE menu list