Binary file in the dock as application

I have installed qutebrowser in /usr/local/bin/qutebrowser and would like to add it to my dock.

What's the right process for adding a binary to the dock, as if it was an application?

tgy

Posted 2018-07-07T17:41:50.133

Reputation: 131

Answers

Just drag and drop it on the doc just like you would any other application. They should move aside to make a spot for it. This is to the left of the divider. The right side is used for folders and mount points.

D.J.

Posted 2018-07-07T17:41:50.133

Reputation: 1

This almost worked for me. I had to drop the executable in the "right" side of the dock, where documents go. My MacOS (10.13.5) recognizes it as a UNIX executable and launches it in a Terminal. The Dock was picky about this though - it would only take files of kind "Unix executable", and no aliases. Also, if your executable is something like "xemacs-21.5", the Finder thinks this is a document (because of the ".5" extension), and you can't drag that to the Dock. – jimtut – 2018-07-10T01:20:40.637

The answer from D.J. about dragging to the Dock is a great idea (didn't know about that), but if you want something a little fancier and don't mind playing around a bit, look Platypus (https://sveinbjorn.org/platypus). It's meant to turn scripts into apps, but the script can be a simple one-line AppleScript or Shell script, which then calls your executable.

This takes a little trial-and-error, but the result looks like a real app with a custom icon, and not just a generic Terminal icon in the Dock.

Of course, you could just install the released .app too (https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/releases), and then just put that in your Dock...

jimtut

Posted 2018-07-07T17:41:50.133

Reputation: 832