How can we create an alias or shortcut command to run a programme in Ubuntu, I have to start multiple sessions of intelliJ and eclipse, every time I restart my computer I have to got to each directory and start the eclipse from there. I want to have a single command that can be run from terminal from any directory to start these programmes.

The simplest way would be, to start a script that does that for you, I think.

Something like this (the 1st line is necessary, it's not a comment):

#!/bin/bash
echo "Running 1st app..."
$HOME/path_to_1st/app & # this runs an app from user's home directory
 # the ampersand makes the app `fork`
 # it means it'll start in the background
 # and the script will continue to execute
echo "Running eclipse..."
cd directory/project1/
eclipse -param1 -param2 path/to/something &

echo "Running 2nd app..."
cd directory/project2
other_app_executable &

The $HOME variable represents the user's home directory. Mind it's the user who runs the script, not necessarily you.
Save above as startmyapps.sh and change permissions to make it executable:

chmod u+x startmyapps.sh

The u+x means:

• 
  u - user


• 
  + - add permission


• 
  x - executable

To run startmyapps.sh in terminal from any working directory, you can either make an alias pointing to its absolute path (the /home/username/path/to/startmyapps.sh - whole thing; on aliases see the other responses) or you need to put it in $PATH. The most common way would be, to save it in your $HOME/bin/ directory and then add this line at the end of your $HOME/.bashrc (or .zshrc or whatever, depending on the shell you use, AFAIK bash is default in Ubuntu):

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin

meaning:

• 
  export - make variable available for children of this terminal


• 
  PATH - work on variable named PATH
  


• 
  = - assign it a new value, which is


• 
  $PATH - the old value


• 
  : - a separator


• 
  $HOME/bin - and your newly created bin directory

Extras

As a side note I want to mention its common to work in virtual environments as a way to separate projects and freeze dependencies, e.g. python's way of creating one would be to call python -m venv new_env_name. Usually this environments come with extensions like workon that can activate a given environment for you wherever you are in the directory tree (as in: you don't have to be in your project's directory, just call workon new_env_name). All those extensions do is calling a starting script from new_env_name/bin/activate - so this is where you'd add necessary calls to start your applications.

1. To add a custom keyboard board shortcut open System Settings and select Keyboard -> Shortcuts tab -> Custom Shortcuts.




2. Open any application, for example Eclipse, and check in the System Monitor app to find the name of the command to start that application from the terminal. For example, the command to start Eclipse is eclipse.




3. Click the + button in the lower left corner of the Shortcuts pane to add a new keyboard shortcut.



4. 
   

   A new little Custom Shortcut window will open up. After where it says Name: type Eclipse. After where it says Command: type eclipse with a lowercase e. Click the Apply button to apply the new keyboard shortcut.

   
   
   

   

   
   
   

   The command eclipse can also be customized to open eclipse with custom command line arguments.

   
   


5. 
   

   Click the Eclipse shortcut that you added to the list of custom shortcuts where it says Disabled, which will make New accelerator... appear after where it says Eclipse instead of Disabled. Press any keyboard shortcut combination to assign it to Eclipse.

   
   
   

   

   
   



6. In order to undo an existing keyboard shortcut, click the existing keyboard shortcut in the list of shortcuts and undo it using the Backspace key.

You can use the alias command in your .bashrc for simplifying commands (example):

alias toclip='xclip -sel clip'

which sens piped output to clipboard using xclip. So for comming closer to your question this could be:

alias startup='eclipse /path/to/project'

Or if a single line is not sufficient enough to start all you need you can define a function in your .bashrc (example):

function extract tar.gz

This defines for example a function extract which takes any kind of filename and tries to extract it. so to keep it more inline with what you want a small example how it could look like:

function startup 
 eclipse /path/to/a/AFile
 eclipse /path/to/a/BFile
 eclipse /path/to/a/CFile
 eclipse /path/to/a/DFile

The good of this approach is that you not have to worry about path variables and so on, you get them this way simply when you start your terminal. The above ones are just examples, you can put whatever you want into your alias or your function as long it is bash compliant.

You can use this command to create shortcut (short link), so simply:

ln -s /path/to/file /path/to/symlink

Goodluck!