How to create a program shortcut

[selukwe]

How can a shortcut to a program be created. e.g. in the Utilities group, if the program is not installed (just extracted from a compressed file) and next run?

[xenopeek]

Right-click the menu button, and choose "Edit Applications". This will open the KDE Menu Editor, where you can add custom entries to the menu. Highlight the category where you want to add a shortcut and click "New Item". Give it the name you want, the on the next screen you will be able to specify the command to run (click the icon just to the right of it, to get a file browser to pick the file to run).

[selukwe]

This was easy, thanks. But I feel a bit limited when selecting the program's icon. In Windows, I would choose from the program's own icons but here my optional program (TreePad Lite) doesn't seem to have its own icons and the default (system) machine wheel icon is displayed instead. Even despite this, this icon is not loaded to the shortcut menu and once I configure a shortcut the icon's place is just empty. At the same time, the selection of system and available icons to use is quite limited. If I extract an icon from the Windows EXE of my program, would it be visible and usable in LM KDE, for this purpose?

I am also fighting with how to sort individual shortcuts within the Application Launcher Menu. They seem to be quite scattered at random and it's a bit uneasy to find a particular program when there are dozens of shortcuts. My personal preference would be to sort them all and always alphabetically. Can (and how?) this be done?

[xenopeek]

I can't place that. Programs are sorted alphabetically in my KDE menu, though it is case-sensitive sort so programs starting with a lower-case letter may be sorted before programs starting with an upper-case letter. And it does use the icon I assign it; be sure to save after using the KDE Menu Editor or it won't apply the changes.

[selukwe]

They do get sorted automatically only when the Launcher format is set to "Description (Name)". If it's anything different than this, they are shown without expected order, on my system, at least. And even then, new manual additions do not get sorted. But my preference is that they are sorted by name, not by description; i.e., I prefer format "Keepass (Password Manager)", not vice versa. It's a pity there's no possibility to enforce particular modes of sorting to the user preference. Could be a suggestion of a feature to be added in later releases?

BTW, where can new ideas and tips be communicated in order to really reach the eyes of those who consider, decide and implement them?

[xenopeek]

Right-click on the menu button, choose "Application Launcher Settings". Checkmark "Show applications by name". Perhaps that makes it sort as you want. You may also try from the right-click on the menu button to "Switch to Classic Menu Style", which may appeal to you more.

If you want to suggest improvements to KDE, you have to do that upstream (Linux Mint team are not the developers of KDE or its components). KDE does have a brainstorm section on their forum: https://forum.kde.org/viewforum.php?f=83. But I'd perhaps first post a question on their forums, if there is a way to sort the menu as you want (if neither of the above options does what you want).

[selukwe]

This is the same as with any other option that is available there - it doesn't sort all entries - new installed software does not get sorted and stays at the top (BTW, the sorting is not case-sensitive in the sense of all low case first or all second...). If sorting is not enforced automatically, then it's a pity that there's no option to enforce it manually.