How do you make the "add to desktop" button work?

[Sethran]

I'm running the flatpak version on fedora, so I know about needing to give steam access to whatever folder desktop shortcuts are stored in, but I can't seem to figure out how to do this.

I did manage to find a folder at ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/Desktop that has what I'm assuming steam thinks is my desktop, but even though it's full of stuff fedora doesn't seem to recognise any of it. Do I need to add this folder to some kind of $PATH for gnome overview?
Please help, this has been bugging me for ages.

[Sethran]

Originally posted by Benkei Kuruma:

I'm wondering if you can do this the same way you supposedly can with the Google Chrome flatpak?

Using Flatseal, maybe try adding filesystem permissions for:

~/.local/share/applications 
~/.local/share/icons

I'll try that, thanks. I don't know if it'll work, but it might do something.
(Edit) It didn't work, sorry.

[[NL]Ben]

Linux Mint user here - not sure how Fedora works, but if the principle is the same you need to use the terminal to change the ownership using chown of the relevant folder to your useraccount (for me the folder is under ~/Desktop - or /home/(user)/Desktop

[BezaoBuilder]

Try to add Flatseal permission for "~/Desktop" (or the appropriate for your language).

[Sethran]

Just added ~/Desktop to steam in flatseal. It definitely did something, since now it's full of a bunch of desktop files just like the one in the steam folder. Only problem is it still doesn't show up in gnome overview. Do you think I need to add ~/Desktop to some kind of $PATH for overview or something?

[Zyro]

Originally posted by Sethran:

Just added ~/Desktop to steam in flatseal. It definitely did something, since now it's full of a bunch of desktop files just like the one in the steam folder. Only problem is it still doesn't show up in gnome overview. Do you think I need to add ~/Desktop to some kind of $PATH for overview or something?

I don't know about GNOME, but KDE can be set to display ~/Desktop - or not to (the default AFAIR).

[BezaoBuilder]

Wait, I somehow didn't think you were running GNOME and you actually meant putting them in the overview panel.
In this case, could you give us the output of "echo $XDG_DATA_DIRS" and "echo $XDG_DATA_HOME" in the terminal.
It is OK if it returns nothing, just tell us.
Also, "ls ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/applications" would be helpful.

[Sethran]

echo $XDG_DATA_DIRS
"/home/$USER/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/:/var/lib/snapd/desktop"

echo $XDG_DATA_HOME
" "

ls ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/applications
'5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel.desktop'*
Magicmaker.desktop*
RimWorld.desktop*
Starbound.desktop*
'Aim Lab.desktop'*
Noita.desktop*
Robocraft.desktop*
Stellaris.desktop*
Factorio.desktop*
'Nova Drift.desktop'*
SNKRX.desktop*
'The Binding of Isaac Rebirth.desktop'*
'Floating Point.desktop'*
'Opus Magnum.desktop'*
'Space Engineers.desktop'*

Hope this helps, I didn't realise there was any confusion. Sorry if I forgot to include any information.

[BezaoBuilder]

Originally posted by Sethran:

echo $XDG_DATA_DIRS
"/home/$USER/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/:/var/lib/snapd/desktop"

echo $XDG_DATA_HOME
" "

ls ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/applications
'5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel.desktop'*
Magicmaker.desktop*
RimWorld.desktop*
Starbound.desktop*
'Aim Lab.desktop'*
Noita.desktop*
Robocraft.desktop*
Stellaris.desktop*
Factorio.desktop*
'Nova Drift.desktop'*
SNKRX.desktop*
'The Binding of Isaac Rebirth.desktop'*
'Floating Point.desktop'*
'Opus Magnum.desktop'*
'Space Engineers.desktop'*

Hope this helps, I didn't realise there was any confusion. Sorry if I forgot to include any information.

Sorry for the very late reply.
You're gonna have to copy those into your actual home directory.
These commands should do nicely:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
cp ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/applications/* ~/.local/share/applications

Then, in Flatseal, add permission for "~/.local/share/applications".
If it doesn't show up, then try restarting the computer.

[One Dum-Dums Lollipop]

Adding the .desktop files to ~/.local/share/applications won't be enough if Steam was installed through Flatpak. Steam puts this as the command to execute when the .desktop file is clicked (example is for CS:GO):

 Exec=steam steam://rungameid/730 

However, because Steam is a Flatpak, the "steam" command doesn't exist. I replaced the "steam" part of the command with the command specified in the .desktop file for Steam itself, resulting in the new CS:GO desktop file containing this:

 Exec=flatpak run --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=/app/bin/steam-wrapper --file-forwarding com.valvesoftware.Steam steam://rungameid/730 

This worked for me. Note that the number 730 tells Steam to launch CS:GO and not some other game; make sure that number is unchanged.