Command to run executable with icon

Question

(Ubuntu 18.04) Is there a command to open an executable WITH a given icon? I'll give more background. I'm trying to create multiple google chrome "users" (NOT the "People" tab, I need each user to have it's own set of people). I know you can do this, and I did, by first running

mkdir ~/.config/google-chrome-Theo

and

mkdir ~/.config/google-chrome-Teddy

Then making a Desktop executable that runs

google-chrome --user-data-dir=$HOME/.config/google-chrome-Theo

and another one that runs

google-chrome --user-data-dir=$HOME/.config/google-chrome-Teddy

That way, when I run the "Theo" executable, I get Theo's suite of People, bookmarks, etc. but when I run the "Teddy" executable, I get Teddy's People and bookmarks. The issue with this is that I can change the icon of each of the Desktop executables, by going into their Properties menu, but I can't change the icon of the chrome instances that pop up. That is, when I open Theo and Teddy's chromes at once, there are two, generic chrome icons, and I have to search to find the one I want. Is there a command to open an executable WITH a given icon?

EDIT: I tried fra-san's answer, and it didn't seem to work for me. I'll clarify what I tried: I ended up with these two desktop files:

1. Desktop/Chrome-Theo.desktop with this content:

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open [Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 Terminal=false Type=Application Name=Google Chrome Exec=/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --user-data-dir="/home/theo/.config/google-chrome-Theo" --class=theo Icon=/home/theo/Icon-Blue.png NoDisplay=true StartupWMClass=theo

2. Desktop/chrome-teddy.desktop, with this content:

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open [Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 Terminal=false Type=Application Name=Google Chrome Exec=/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --user-data-dir="/home/ubuntu/.config/google-chrome-Teddy" --class=teddy Icon=home/teddy/Icon-Red.png NoDisplay=true StartupWMClass=teddy

However, when I open them, they still show the default chrome icon in the sidebar. Did I mess up somewhere?

EDIT 2: I just realized that the two desktop executables are opening the same user of chrome... I bookmarked a page on the Theo chrome, and when I opened the Teddy one, it had that same bookmark. I'm really confused at this point.

Answer 1

Assumptions

I will assume that: you are on Ubuntu 18, your desktop environment is GNOME 3, you are using google-chrome-stable.
Also, I will assume that the icons you are referring to are those in GNOME's dash (actually, it is Ubuntu Dock, which as far as I can tell is a fork of dash, but I'm currently unable to link to any meaningful documentation). Its default behavior is to group together multiple instances of Chrome. Thus, finally I'm assuming that you want distinct icons for distinct Chrome profiles in Dock.

Solution

Basically, the steps you need to reproduce are explained in my answer to this question. That won't be enough, though, presumably because of this bug - which makes Google Chrome ignore the --class option unless the --user-data-dir option is also specified (and distinct directories are used).

You will need two things:

1. Some edits to your desktop files;
2. Two distinct Chrome user data directories.

Point 2: fortunately you already have them: ~/.config/google-chrome-Theo and ~/.config/google-chrome-Teddy.

Point 1: I don't have enough details about your desktop files, so here I'm creating them from scratch.
By default, the location of per-user desktop files is ~/.local/share/applications.
Thus, I create:

1. ~/.local/share/applications/chrome-theo.desktop, with this content:

   #!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
   [Desktop Entry]
   Version=1.0
   Terminal=false
   Type=Application
   Name=Google Chrome
   Exec=/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --user-data-dir="/home/your_user/.config/google-chrome-Theo" --class=theo
   Icon=icon_for_theo
   NoDisplay=true
   StartupWMClass=theo
   

2. ~/.local/share/applications/chrome-teddy.desktop, with this content:

   #!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
   [Desktop Entry]
   Version=1.0
   Terminal=false
   Type=Application
   Name=Google Chrome
   Exec=/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --user-data-dir="/home/ubuntu/.config/google-chrome-Teddy" --class=teddy
   Icon=icon_for_teddy
   NoDisplay=true
   StartupWMClass=teddy
   

Replace your_user in the paths with your actual username.
Replace icon_for_theo and icon_for_theddy with:

• The full path to the icon files you are going to use; OR
• The name, without extension, of the icon files if you are making them available system-wide in /usr/share/icons/hicolor/.

The second option is much more complex to set up, but it allows you to have variously sized icons. Refer to this answer on Ask Ubuntu for further information - it ultimately links to the Icon Theme Specification by freedesktop.org.

How does it work:

• The --class= option gives two distinct WMCLASSes to the two Chrome instances, making them non-groupable in Dock;
• The StartupWMClass= sets a link between the open Chrome windows and the desktop entries that launched them, letting them keep their custom icons in Dock;
• Due to the bug mentioned above, the --user-data-dir= option and the two distinct user data directories are needed for the first two points to be effective.

Notes and troubleshooting

Tested with: live Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, Xorg session, google-chrome-stable 71.0.3578.98-1.

Borrowing from the comments to my aforementioned answer:

• It is advisable to test this kind of configurations on a clean system: at least, new Chrome profiles and user data directories; at best, a dedicated user (possibly created solely for testing purposes).

• xprop can be used for checking if the --class option is being honoured:

  ## This example uses chromium instead of Google Chrome!
  ## With default settings:
  $ xprop WM_CLASS
  WM_CLASS(STRING) = "chromium", "Chromium"
  
  ## With --class=test_class
  $ xprop WM_CLASS
  WM_CLASS(STRING) = "chromium", "test_class"