In this post I’ll show how to add an Eclipse launcher as a favorite (pinned) application in the Gnome dock (I’m using Ubuntu Artful). This post is inspired by http://blog.ttoine.net/en/2016/06/30/how-to-add-eclipse-neon-launcher-in-gnu-linux-menus-and-launchers/.

First of all, you need to create a .desktop file, where you need to specify the full path of your Eclipse installation:

This is relative to my installation of Eclipse which is in the folder /home/bettini/eclipse/java-latest-released/eclipse, note the executable “eclipse” and the “icon.xpm”. The name “Eclipse Java” is what will appear as the launcher name both in Gnome applications and later in the dock.

Make this file executable.

Copy this file in your home folder in .local/share/applications.

Now in Gnome Activities search for such a launcher and it should appear:

Select it and make sure that Eclipse effectively runs.

Unfortunately, in the dock, there’s no contextual menu for you to add it as a favorite and pin it to the dock:

But you can still add it to the dock favorites (and thus pin it there) by using the corresponding contextual menu that is available when the launcher appears in the Activities:

And there you go: the Eclipse launcher is now on your dock and it’s there to stay 🙂