How to run an alias from the "run command prompt"

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Hello all. I am very new to Fedora and the Linux scene in general but have really taken a liking to it. So I have noticed there are two different ways to runs commands. One being the terminal and the other being the Run command prompt.
So after some pecking around I was able to edit by /.bashrc file with vim to create an alias that launches IntelliJ IDEA with the command “int”. This command works perfectly in terminal but it will not work in the Run command prompt (is that the correct name?) How can I get this alias to execute from there? If anyone could give some guidance it would be of much help. It has been bugging me! Thank you.

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Dear @connorzman,
welcome to the Fedora Community.

I am sorry I can’t directly answer you question (no idea how the run prompt is implemented in Gnome session), but why don’t you just create a desktop launcher? See: https://developer.gnome.org/integration-guide/stable/desktop-files.html.en

In that case you need to hit “Super”, start typing “int”, and hit “Enter”. That enables a pretty quick start of an app too.

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Ref: Alt+F2 dialog doesn’t know bash aliases

You can also run short scripts to launch applications from the run dialog but if the application is available after hitting the super (windows) key and typing the name it is easier to do that.

Any script would need to be in your path which should include: /home/$user/.local/bin or /home/$user/bin
You can see what it is by doing echo $PATH

for example:

#!/usr/bin/bash
exec gnome-calculator

I would open up my editor of choice type that out and and save it in /home/grumpey/bin as gcalc
then I would need to make it executable
chmod +x /home/grumpey/bin/gcalc

Then I would be able to use the run dialog to run it by typing the file name gcalc

Welcome to Fedora.

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Just as a point of clarification, there is the “Run Command” dialog when you hit Alt-F2, but that’s really rarely useful compared to the “Search” box in the Overview ­— the thing you get by hitting the Super (“Windows”) key.

In that search, if the software was installed via a package, it probably already shows up, and you can just start typing the first few letters. If not, you can create a .desktop file and drop it into ~/.local/share/applications. You can find the documentation for this file type here: Desktop Entry Specification, including an example file (which actually has more than you even need).

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