If you want to create a custom link to some command or application on the Gnome3 activities menu, and you don’t want to install tools like Alacarte, just do the following:

1. Create a <name>.desktop in ~/.local/share/applications/

Source code

[lipi@i5-moll applications]$ pwd
/home/lipi/.local/share/applications
 
[lipi@i5-moll applications]$ cat oracle-task-input.desktop 
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Oracle Task Input
Comment=Llança el gestor de tasques Oracle
Exec=/home/lipi/projects/task_management.sh
Icon=/home/lipi/projects/oracle-icon.png
Terminal=false
Encoding=UTF-8

And that’s all!

If you want to see the icons that are defined in the system, take a look into /usr/share/applications/