Keyboard shortcuts don't see my custom executable

Question

On Ubuntu 22.04 I have an executable (bash) file in custom folder scripts in the home. The path of the latter is properly included at the end of the .bashrc file (and also at the end of the .profile one, just to be sure) with the line export PATH="$PATH:/home/username/scripts". The command runs correctly in a terminal shell but not if I invoke it through a keyboard shortcut properly set via Settings. Edit: The same issue shows up on two different computers which recently had an OS fresh install and with different kinds of bash executables.

Where do I modify the path used by keyboard shortcuts?

Answer 1

Modifying the path used by keyboard shortcuts is not the solution to your problem. There are two possibilities:

Option 1. In the "Command" field for your keyboard shortcut, you specify the full path to your executable, e.g. /path/to/custom_folder/some_executable. Note that you cannot use bash expansion (~) nor variable, so the path must be spelled out explicitly.

Option 2. You place the executable in a directory that is in the search PATH. Type printenv PATH to see all these directories. More precisely, you place it in ~/.local/bin or in ~/bin if you are the only one running the command. If the command needs to be available for all users on the system, place it in /usr/local/bin. The latter assumes you have administrator rights on your machine.

Instead of effectively moving the executable in one of these directories, you also can place a symlink or a wrapper script there if you prefer not to move the executable from its current location.

Answer 2

Here is a simple example to make the process mentioned by @vanadium clearer:

Suppose that you have a read_this.sh bash file that reads your clipboard aloud:

txt=$(xclip -selection clipboard -o)
clean_txt=$(tr -d "\"'" <<< "$txt")
echo "(SayText \"$clean_txt\")" | festival '(voice_cmu_us_slt_arctic_hts)' --pipe

1. Copy the file in the /bin/ folder (do this command from the folder of the file):

   sudo cp read_this.sh /bin/read_this

2. Add a shortcut with command bash read_this to the Keyboard Shortcut panel in the settings.