How to launch apps on Gnome Shell more efficiently

Fly-Pie is a new, mouse-based gnome launcher application for use on Gnome Shell. With it, you can quickly launch apps, settings, and other things on your Gnome desktop environment. However, before we go over how to use the app, we must demonstrate how to set it up on your Linux system.

Fly-Pie Gnome Shell Extension

Fly-Pie is a Gnome Shell extension. It being an extension isn’t bad news. It’s excellent news! Why? Unlike apps like Gnome Pie, or other launchers of this type, Linux users do not need to fiddle with DEB and RPM packages or compiling source code. Instead, the app can be instantly installed through the Gnome Extension website or downloaded via their GitHub.

Enable Gnome Shell Extensions

The installation of Fly-Pie does require some setup, though. You will need to configure your Linux PC to install Gnome Extensions. So, follow our guide on how to set up the Gnome browser extension and Gnome Linux tool that enables the installation of extensions from the website.

Note: if you do not want to install the Gnome Linux tool that enables the ability to install extensions, you can follow the GitHub instructions. However, we do not recommend following the GitHub instructions unless you know how your Gnome Shell system works and are an expert.

Install Fly-Pie Gnome Launcher Extension

The Fly-Pie tool is available to all running Gnome Shell 3.36 and newer. To install it, do the following. First, head over to the Fly-Pie extension page on the Gnome Extension website. Once there, look for the installation slider, and click on it.

After clicking on the slider, a pop-up will appear on the screen. Click on the “Install” button to set up Fly-Pie on your computer.

Install Fly-Pie via GitHub

While it is not ideal, it is possible to download and install the Fly-Pie extension on Linux via GitHub. To do it, start by launching a terminal window on the desktop. Once the terminal window is open on the desktop, use the CD command to move the command-line session into ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions where all Gnome extensions are kept on the system.

cd ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions

Once inside of the folder, use the Git tool to download the latest release of the extension to your computer. Keep in mind you will need to have the Git program set up on your computer to use this command.

Note: to install the Git program on your Linux PC, head over to this page on Pkgs.org, and look through the list of distributions. When you’ve found your OS, click on the “git” package to get instructions on how to set up the app.

git clone https://github.com/Schneegans/Fly-Pie.git

After downloading the “Fly-Pie folder, you must rename it to “flypie@schneegans.github.com.” Renaming the folder to this name will allow Gnome Shell to detect the extension.

mv Fly-Pie flypie@schneegans.github.com

You can then enable the extension directly through the command-line with the gnome-extensions enable command.

gnome-extensions enable flypie@schneegans.github.com

Using the Fly-Pie Gnome Launcher for the First Time

The Fly-Pie application is a bit different from most app launchers. It’s designed to be used with a mouse, and there’s no typing necessary. To start the process, you must install the Gnome Extensions application. This app is a Flatpak app, so to get it, follow our guide to learn how to set up the Flatpak runtime. Then, install this app here.

Once you’ve got the Gnome Extensions app set up, launch it by searching for “Extensions” in your app menu or, by running the terminal command below.

flatpak run org.gnome.Extensions

Inside of the Extensions app, look through your installed Gnome Extensions for “Fly-Pie” and click on the options icon next to it. Upon clicking on the options icon, you will be presented with the Fly-Pie configuration window. In this window, locate the “Tutorial” tab, and click on it.

In the “Tutorial” tab for Fly-Pie, you will be presented with a walkthrough on how to use the Fly-Pie menu. Be sure to study this tutorial, as it shows you exactly how everything works, and how you can use it.

When you’ve finished up with the tutorial, follow the instructions below to learn how to build your own custom gnome launcher menu and how to launch various items.

Build Your Own Gnome Launcher Menu in Fly-Pie

The real power of Fly-Pie comes from creating your own custom pie menus tailored to your workflow. Here is how to do it step by step.

Step 1: Open Fly-Pie preferences. In the Extensions app, click the options icon next to Fly-Pie. This opens the Fly-Pie settings window. Navigate to the Menus tab.

Step 2: Create a new menu. Click the + (Add Menu) button at the bottom of the menus list. A new, untitled menu entry will appear in the list.

Step 3: Name your menu and choose an icon. Click on the new menu entry to expand its settings. Type a name into the name field — for example, Work Apps. To choose an icon, click the icon picker next to the name field and select any icon from the system icon library.

Step 4: Assign a hotkey. In the menu’s settings, locate the Shortcut field. Click inside it and press the key combination you want to use to trigger this gnome launcher pie — for example, Ctrl + F1. Fly-Pie will record your keypress. Make sure it does not conflict with another system shortcut.

Step 5: Add items to your menu. Click the Add Item button (or the + icon inside the menu editor). You will be shown a list of item types. Select Application, then pick the app you want from the list. Repeat this for each app you want in the pie. For a Work Apps pie you might add:

• Terminal — for quick command-line access
• Firefox — for web browsing
• Files (Nautilus) — for file management
• Settings — for GNOME system settings

Step 6: Remove items. If you added an item by mistake, select it in the menu editor and click the Remove (trash) icon. The slice will be removed from the pie immediately.

Step 7: Reorder slices. Items in the Fly-Pie editor can be dragged up or down in the list. The order you set here determines the clockwise position of each slice in the pie. Drag items into the order that feels most natural for your mouse movements.

Step 8: Test your menu. Close the settings window, press your assigned hotkey on the desktop, and your custom Work Apps pie will appear. Move the mouse toward any slice and release to launch that item.

What You Can Launch with the Fly-Pie Gnome Launcher

Fly-Pie supports several distinct item types, making it more than a simple app launcher. Here is a rundown of what you can put in a pie menu and how to configure each one.

Applications

You can add any installed application as a slice. In the Fly-Pie menu editor, click Add Item, choose Application, and pick the app from the list. At runtime, press Ctrl + Space (or your custom hotkey), move the mouse toward the app’s slice, and release to launch it. The default Fly-Pie menu also includes a Default Apps submenu that groups installed applications by category — select a category, then the app you want. If you want to launch apps efficiently using other methods, there are several keyboard-driven alternatives worth exploring.

Files, folders, and bookmarks

Fly-Pie can open files and folders directly from a pie slice. In the menu editor, choose Add Item and select the Bookmarks item type to pull in your Nautilus bookmarks automatically, or choose File to point to a specific path. At runtime, open the gnome launcher menu with Ctrl + Space, navigate to the Bookmarks submenu, and select the folder you want to open. This is useful for quickly jumping to project directories or frequently used locations without opening a file manager first.

Media controls

Fly-Pie includes a built-in Sound item type that exposes media controls — play, pause, skip forward, skip back, and volume. In the menu editor, add a Sound item to any pie. At runtime, open the menu with Ctrl + Space, move to the Sound slice, and select the control you need without switching away from your current window.

Window management

Fly-Pie can perform window actions on the currently focused window. Add a Window Management item in the menu editor to expose options such as close, minimize, maximize, and toggle fullscreen. Open the gnome launcher with Ctrl + Space, navigate to Window Management, and choose the action you want. For switching between open windows, the default menu also includes a Running Apps item type that lists your active windows as slices so you can jump between them with a mouse gesture.

Custom commands and scripts

Fly-Pie supports a Command item type that lets you run any shell command or script as a pie slice. In the menu editor, click Add Item, select Command, and type the shell command you want to execute — for example, notify-send "Hello" or a path to a bash script like /home/user/scripts/backup.sh. This makes Fly-Pie useful well beyond app launching: you can trigger maintenance scripts, open SSH sessions, or run any task you would normally type into a terminal, all from a single mouse gesture.

Add Your Own App to the GNOME Launcher with a .desktop File

GNOME’s app grid and gnome launcher tools like Fly-Pie both rely on .desktop files to know which applications exist on your system. If you installed an app manually — by extracting a folder or downloading a standalone binary — it will not appear in GNOME’s launcher until you create a .desktop entry for it. Here is how to do that.

All per-user .desktop files go in one place:

~/.local/share/applications/

Create that directory if it does not already exist:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications

Then create a new text file in that folder with a .desktop extension. For example:

nano ~/.local/share/applications/myapp.desktop

Paste in the following minimal template and fill in the values for your application:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=My App
Exec=/home/yourname/apps/myapp/myapp
Icon=/home/yourname/apps/myapp/myapp.png
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;

Here is what each field means:

• Name — The display name that appears in GNOME’s app grid and in Fly-Pie.
• Exec — The full path to the executable file or the command used to launch the app.
• Icon — A full path to an image file, or the name of a system icon theme icon (without file extension).
• Type — Always set this to Application for a launcher entry.
• Categories — A semicolon-separated list of categories that determines where GNOME groups the app. Common values include Utility, Development, Network, and AudioVideo.

For a concrete example, suppose you downloaded a standalone code editor called Zed to /home/yourname/apps/zed/. Your .desktop file would look like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Zed Editor
Exec=/home/yourname/apps/zed/zed
Icon=/home/yourname/apps/zed/zed.png
Type=Application
Categories=Development;

Save the file and close the editor. GNOME will detect the new entry automatically — you may need to log out and back in on some distributions. Once it appears in the app grid, you can also add it to a Fly-Pie gnome launcher menu as an Application item, giving you one-gesture access to apps that were not installed through a package manager.

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