WinApps-Launcher

Taskbar Launcher for WinApps. Feel free to fork, submit pull requests, open issues and promote this project to grow the WinApps community!

Dependencies

You should already have most required dependencies after installing WinApps, but yad may be missing.

Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint / Zorin OS

sudo apt install yad

Fedora / RHEL

sudo dnf install yad

Arch

sudo pacman -Syu --needed yad

openSUSE

sudo zypper install yad

Important

GNOME no longer shows tray icons by default. To use WinApps Launcher with GNOME, you must install the AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support shell extension.

Installation

1. Ensure you have already installed WinApps.

2. Identify your WinApps source directory.

   • For a local user installation: ~/.local/bin/winapps-src
   • For a system-wide installation: /usr/local/bin/winapps-src

3. Set a variable in your terminal pointing to this directory. Copy the line that matches your setup.

   # FOR LOCAL INSTALL:
   WINAPPS_SRC_DIR="$HOME/.local/bin/winapps-src"
   
   # --- OR ---
   
   # FOR SYSTEM-WIDE INSTALL:
   WINAPPS_SRC_DIR="/usr/local/bin/winapps-src"

4. Clone this repository and run the launcher as a test. This will place winapps-launcher inside your existing winapps-src directory.

   # Clone the repository into the correct location
   git clone https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps-launcher.git "${WINAPPS_SRC_DIR}/winapps-launcher"
   
   # Make the script executable
   chmod +x "${WINAPPS_SRC_DIR}/winapps-launcher/winapps-launcher.sh"
   
   # Run the launcher as a test
   "${WINAPPS_SRC_DIR}/winapps-launcher/winapps-launcher.sh"

Post-Installation

You can add an application menu icon for WinApps Launcher and/or configure a user service that starts WinApps Launcher automatically at login.

Application Icon

Ensuring WINAPPS_SRC_DIR is still set correctly, run the following within your terminal to add a WinApps Launcher icon to your applications menu.

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications

cat > ~/.local/share/applications/winapps-launcher.desktop <<EOF
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=WinApps Launcher
Comment=Taskbar Launcher for WinApps
Exec="$WINAPPS_SRC_DIR/winapps-launcher/winapps-launcher.sh"
Icon=$WINAPPS_SRC_DIR/winapps-launcher/icons/LinkIcon.svg
Terminal=false
Categories=Utility;
EOF

Autostart

1. Ensuring WINAPPS_SRC_DIR is still set correctly, copy and paste the following code block into your terminal to create the systemd user service file.

   mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
   
   cat > ~/.config/systemd/user/winapps-launcher.service <<EOF
   [Unit]
   Description=Run 'WinApps Launcher'
   After=graphical-session.target default.target
   Wants=graphical-session.target
   
   [Service]
   Type=simple
   Environment="PATH=%h/.local/bin:%h/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"
   Environment="LIBVIRT_DEFAULT_URI=qemu:///system"
   Environment="SCRIPT_PATH=$WINAPPS_SRC_DIR/winapps-launcher/winapps-launcher.sh"
   Environment="LANG=C"
   ExecStart=/bin/bash -c "\\"\$SCRIPT_PATH\\""
   ExecStopPost=/bin/bash -c 'echo "[SYSTEMD] WINAPPS LAUNCHER SERVICE EXITED."'
   TimeoutStartSec=5
   TimeoutStopSec=5
   Restart=on-failure
   RestartSec=5
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=default.target
   EOF

2. Enable the user service.

   systemctl --user enable winapps-launcher --now # Enable & Start Service
   systemctl --user status winapps-launcher # Verify

Note

To uninstall the WinApps Launcher user service, run the following:

systemctl --user stop winapps-launcher # Stop Service
systemctl --user disable winapps-launcher # Disable Service
rm ~/.config/systemd/user/winapps-launcher.service # Delete Service