Use gtk-launch?

[probonopd]

Launch specified application by its desktop file info.
Might result in icon being shown in Unity dock properly.
To be tested on other distributions.

To launch from the "outside"; e.g., from the desktopintegration wrapper:
gtk-launch appimagekit-leafpad

[develar]

Yeah, app icon is shown only if run from "Spotlight" (ubuntu - Search this computer). And no icon if run as click on image or terminal. Will try gtk-launch.

[develar]

If I understand correctly, if we will use gtk-launch in the desktopintegration wrapper, image will be mounted twice — because gtk-launch will execute image again.

[probonopd]

Yes we still need to wrap our head around that. Probably the correct way would be for the desktopintegration script to install the desktop integration, and then not launch the payload app but unmount the AppImage and then execute gtk-launch on the just-installed desktop file. Only I don't know how to do this (yet)...

[develar]

then not launch the payload app but unmount the AppImage and then execute gtk-launch on the just-installed desktop file. Only I don't know how to do this (yet)...

And it is a dirty hack. I am not Linux user. On OS X I always use Spotlight/Dock to run app. On Linux — if user will use image (click) to run — boot time will be increased because of this solution. Well, yeah, I am not Linux expert and also don't know is there better solution.

Only if we will implement this solution in the runtime to avoid mount.

[probonopd]

Looks like we might need to develop the Linux equivalent of macOS LaunchServices ;-)

[probonopd]

Let's not forget that there is gtk-launch, but KDE uses something else, as does XFCE, so we would also have to have a good look at how xdg-open deals with those.

[probonopd]

Let's really make sure this also works on non-gtk distros; at least it should fall back to the current behavior if there is no gtk-launch installed.

[probonopd]

Implemented a bare-bones replacement for gtk-launch.

It can launch AppImages with icon like this: ./launch /home/me/.local/share/applications/appimagekit-terminix.desktop. Possibly it can also be used inside the AppImage by AppRun... to be investigated.

On Ubuntu 12.04:

/*
Can be compiled on Ubuntu 12.04 with
sudo apt-get install glib2.0-dev libgtk2.0-dev
gcc launch.c -o launch $(pkg-config --cflags glib-2.0) $(pkg-config --libs glib-2.0) \
$(pkg-config --cflags gio-unix-2.0) $(pkg-config --libs gio-unix-2.0) \
$(pkg-config gtk+-2.0 --libs) $(pkg-config gtk+-2.0 --cflags)
*/

#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>

#include <glib.h>
#include <gdk/gdk.h>
#include <gtk/gtk.h>
#include <gio/gdesktopappinfo.h>

static gchar **args = NULL;

int
main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
    GDesktopAppInfo *info;
    if (! argv[1]){
        fprintf(stderr, "USAGE: %s DESKTOPFILE\n", argv[0]);
        return 1;
    }
    gtk_init(&argc, &argv);
    char *filename;
    const gchar *file = NULL;
    char buf[PATH_MAX];
    memset(buf, 0, sizeof(buf));
    snprintf(buf, sizeof(buf) - 1, "%s", argv[1]);
    GAppLaunchContext *context;
    context = g_app_launch_context_new();
    GDesktopAppInfo *appinfo = g_desktop_app_info_new_from_filename(buf);
    if (appinfo)
        g_app_info_launch((GAppInfo *)appinfo, NULL, context, NULL);
    return 0;
}

results in not much less:

root@host:/# ldd ./launch 
    linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007ffede8d1000)
    libgio-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgio-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fe5d042f000)
    libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fe5cfdf4000)
    libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fe5cfbd6000)
    libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fe5cf816000)
    libglib-2.0.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fe5cf521000)
    libgobject-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgobject-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fe5cf2d1000)
    libgmodule-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgmodule-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fe5cf0cd000)
    libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007fe5ceeb6000)
    libselinux.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libselinux.so.1 (0x00007fe5cec96000)
    libresolv.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00007fe5cea7a000)
    libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fe5ce7c8000)
    libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fe5ce5bb000)
    libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 (0x00007fe5ce286000)
    libXfixes.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXfixes.so.3 (0x00007fe5ce080000)
    libatk-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libatk-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fe5cde5d000)
    libcairo.so.2 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcairo.so.2 (0x00007fe5cdb9f000)
    libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fe5cd97f000)
    libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fe5cd754000)
    libpango-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpango-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fe5cd50b000)
    libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x00007fe5cd2d5000)
    libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007fe5ccfd8000)
    /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x000055fbb61ed000)
    libpcre.so.3 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre.so.3 (0x00007fe5ccd9b000)
    librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007fe5ccb93000)
    libffi.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffi.so.6 (0x00007fe5cc98a000)
    libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fe5cc786000)
    libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXext.so.6 (0x00007fe5cc574000)
    libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXrender.so.1 (0x00007fe5cc36a000)
    libXinerama.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXinerama.so.1 (0x00007fe5cc167000)
    libXi.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXi.so.6 (0x00007fe5cbf56000)
    libXrandr.so.2 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXrandr.so.2 (0x00007fe5cbd4e000)
    libXcursor.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXcursor.so.1 (0x00007fe5cbb44000)
    libXcomposite.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXcomposite.so.1 (0x00007fe5cb940000)
    libXdamage.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXdamage.so.1 (0x00007fe5cb73d000)
    libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so.6 (0x00007fe5cb49f000)
    libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1 (0x00007fe5cb281000)
    libpixman-1.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpixman-1.so.0 (0x00007fe5cafea000)
    libpng12.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng12.so.0 (0x00007fe5cadc1000)
    libxcb-shm.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb-shm.so.0 (0x00007fe5cabbe000)
    libxcb-render.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb-render.so.0 (0x00007fe5ca9b4000)
    libexpat.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexpat.so.1 (0x00007fe5ca789000)
    libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0x00007fe5ca586000)
    libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00007fe5ca37f000)

Actually the file itself depends only on

/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
libgio-2.0.so.0
libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
libpthread.so.0
libc.so.6

and the rest are dependencies of the dependencies. So should be reasonable to use.

launch.zip