Add a custom program/command launcher to Linux Mint panel

Panel is the perfect place in Linux Mint to put the launchers for programs/commands that are used most often. To create a launcher we need a .desktop file that describes some attributes of the program. Most installed GUI programs come with their launchers (.desktop files), but when we have a custom command/program of our own that we want to create the launcher for, the only thing we need to do is create a .desktop file.

A .desktop file would make the program available in the search and also would allow for drag-drop and pin-to-panel.

Here's an example .desktop file I created for the ShotCut video editor (I installed the AppImage version which obviously doesn't contain a .desktop file):

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Shotcut
Comment=Shotcut Video Editor
Exec=/path/to/shotcut-linux-x86_64-221221.AppImage
Icon=/path/to/shotcut-logo-512x512.png
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true

I've saved the content as ~/.local/share/applications/shotcut.desktop.

Additionally, if the program needs to have the auto-start capability when the user logs in, we can also put the file in ~/.config/autostart/ directory or create a symbolic link e.g. for shotcut.desktop:

ln -s ~/.local/share/applications/shotcut.desktop ~/.config/autostart/shotcut.desktop

Reference: .desktop file specs.