'Keep in launcher' item missing for some applications

@gordallott: can you clarify on which condition the option may be missing from the quicklist?

gord says it should be a bamf issue with the fallback system where bamf doesn't provide a desktop file for an application.

I'm experiencing this issue also, both with Chromium and Google Chrome. After installing the .deb package, I can use the Unity search or the Applications menu to launch Chromium. Either way, there doesn't seem to be a way to pin to the side-menu. Right-clicking provides the non-verbose name of the application - "Chromium-browser", and the only context option is "Quit". I'm using an HP Mini with an up-to-date UNE 10.10 from the final installer image.

From dup , Homebank also has similar problem

The latest libunity update resolved the issue for me. Thanks for the hard work! This unity interface is fantastic!

I'm still having this issue. I'm using the actual production release of 10.10 Netbook Edition, all updates applied. Asus EeePC 1005HAB.

I'm experiencing this bug also on my Asus eeePC 901. Every program I like to add does not show "Keep in launcher".

I believe I have found a solution. I installed a package named libunity-dev. The description says: libunity-places is a shared library to be able to interact with the launcher and add places in Unity environment. After installing the package and restarting the system I had the option to "keep in launcher" for icons.

The latest round of routine updates solved this issue for me. I did not need to install libunity-dev.

For Homebank this is solved now.
But I have another program (KomodoEdit) which I installed manually (without deb package) and here I don't have the "Keep in launcher" item.

I'm still experiencing this issue on a clean updated install of 10.10 production, with both the stable and unstable builds of Google Chrome. I don't particularly want to have to install 130mb+ of dev packages on my netbook, simply in order to get libunity-dev and the icon functioning properly.

I get the same issue with Instantbird. I'm using a fresh install of 10.10.

I've noticed that "keep in launcher" was in sub-menu and worked for everything even Chromium until I deleted several pre-installed icons. After that all the new applications have only "quit" item in their sub-menu.
Hope, this can help.

I've found a workaround for this issue.
1) Open terminal and type:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure libunity0
2) logout and login again
After that "keep in launcher" option returns back.

Jason: can you determine whether there is an easy fix and most important a fix that in bamf/launcher that is also relevant to the new Natty version?

there are many different storires here in in this bug afaict ... here the few I see:

1. no launcher/.desktop can be found if you just run a random binary you installed on your system
  -> this needs some magic that would create a .desktop file if you click on the "keep in launcher" entry (and then we can display keep in launcher even if no .desktop is found)

2. .desktop file is not in the common search path
  -> at least $HOME/.local/share/applications should be considered ... also we can make the .desktop file handler smart to somehow register the .desktop file or even its location for tracking by bamf

3. application windows - even though they have a .desktop file - cannot be back-mapped to its launcher by bamf. freedesktop startup-notification protocol has the option to add a field "StartupWMClass=" to .desktop file which can be used to better do this ... for this bug i created a separate ticket (bug 693231) and submitted a fix there. This fixes "Keep in Launcher" for firefox dailies, gajim and probably others.

lowering the maverick task, unity was only on UNE and the version used is different from the natty one, it has been decided to not spend efforts on fixing the old code but rather to focus on the natty version

All items now have this option, though it may not always work

Not a release blocker, and too late for a3 now.

It still doesn't work for KDE-programs and Firefox Dailys. Using Unity 2D bzr on 11.04

Triaged means that this bug report have all the required information to be worked on. setting back as such

Sorry, misunderstood it. But is there being worked on for 11.04 2D?

No idea, Kate, seems like a bug not a feature :-)

This bug was fixed in the package bamf - 0.2.80-0ubuntu1

---------------
bamf (0.2.80-0ubuntu1) natty; urgency=low

  * New upstream release.
    - 'Keep in launcher' item missing for some applications (LP: #657771)
    - can't pin KTouch to the launcher (LP: #693755)
 -- Didier Roche <email address hidden> Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:51:00 +0100

This still occurs with the Thunderbird Daily "Shredder" builds (not the Firefox Daily "Namarooka" builds though). This is on a clean install of Unity-2d made on 3/20/2011 on Maverick.

Have a great day:)
Patrick.

Work-around:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/13758/how-can-i-edit-create-new-launcher-items-in-unity-by-hand

On a related note, Unity 2D supports drag’n’drop of custom desktop files to the launcher to add new favorites.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Does not work for me with gvim in unity-2d in Precise. I only see a Quit menu item added.