How to create second desktop entry for preview and stable android studio on Ubuntu

Question

I want to install android studio preview alongside the stable version.

Download the .zip into ~/Download

/home/zelongg/Downloads/android-studio-ide-171.4444016-linux-3.1-canary-4.zip

sudo unzip android-studio-ide-171.4444016-linux-3.1-canary-4.zip -d /usr/local/lib/android-studio-preview

sudo mv -v /usr/local/lib/android-studio-preview/android-studio/* /usr/local/lib/android-studio-preview/

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/android-studio-preview/android-studio/

zelongg@zelongg:/usr/local/lib/android-studio-preview/bin$ ./studio.sh

create a new folder in ~/Android/sdk in case that the newly downloaded sdk will affect the sdk in mini project.

we can successfully run android studio preview 3.1 canary 4

But we cannot create the second desktop entry somehow.

https://developer.android.com/studio/preview/install-preview.html

The 2 desktop entry means:

What I want is that it should show 2 icons for both Android Studio and Android Studio Preview seperately. But now they share one icon in the left bar.

I followed the instructions below, but it doesn't work.

To make the preview version available in your list of applications, select Tools

Create Desktop Entry from the Android Studio menu bar.

Answer 1

just install stable and canary versions from ubuntu software store and their shortcuts are separate by default

Answer 2

I tried the accepted answer but had little difficulty since I am not so good with the terminal. so I installed *nautilus Admin. using the command sudo apt-get install nautilus-admin

open Computer-> usr -> share right click applications select Open as Administrator. (for this option u need to install nautilus admin as stated above). right click existing android studio desktop entry select edit as Administrator.

In that file change the StartupWMClass property to jetbrains-studio-preview. that is done. now open your newly installed android studio and create desktop entry. and .... that's it.

Answer 3

I used Create Desktop Entry from Android Studio Preview, which replaced the ~/.local/share/applications/jetbrains-studio.desktop of my stable version.

Then I copied that file to ~/.local/share/applications/jetbrains-studio-preview.desktop.

The icon was still green, so I downloaded a yellow one and used it in the .desktop file:

I also edited the .desktop file to suffix the name property with Preview

Then I ran the stable version to Create Desktop Entry to restore it.

Unity launcher didn't refresh the preview version icon and name straight away (it's ok after a reboot) and I couldn't figure out which one was which after typing Android Studio in the launcher. So I ran the jetbrains-studio-preview.desktop from its directory (first setting it to be executable), and then I locked it to the launcher. The result: