Creating a Desktop Shortcut in Gnome

There are two ways to create a desktop shortcut on your Ubuntu desktop. One is harder than the other, we will start with the easiest one:

Click on the Applications menu and find the program you want to add a shortcut to on the desktop. Right click on the program title and select "Add this launcher to desktop". You will now see a desktop shortcut to the application. This is the easy way to do it, but it can only be used to add an application link to the desktop.

The harder way is to right click on the desktop, select "Create Launcher", choose the Type, (an application launches and application, application in terminal opens the application in the terminal, file launches a file in the default program, this is good for if you want a folder or webpage to open). Give the icon a name and then click the Browse button to find the file or application you want to load, add a comment if you want (this is a tooltip), and select an icon. Once finished click OK, and there it is, your brand new shortcut.