mjhjmtu

First off, relevant specs:

• Arch Linux x86_64


• Thinkpad T450s


• Kernel: 4.13.12-1-ARCH


• Shell: zsh 5.4.2


• WM: i3 + Ly (w/ polybar, rofi)

I am having a problem with getting MATLAB to launch from rofi, or even from a menu in polybar. It starts perfectly fine when I invoke the "matlab" command from the terminal, but whenever I attempt to use a gui solution (such as dmenu or rofi, or the menu module in polybar) to launch it, the MathWorks splash screen appears for a second, closes, and pings a system beep. I am an intermediate level linux user, and have exhausted all of my best attempts at deriving a solution. Help!

edit: also, matlab is in my $PATH

After much searching, I pieced together something that works pretty well for the polybar menu. If you create a script somewhere in your $PATH, lets name it matlab_desktop, and include the code (what i included):

#!/usr/bin/env zsh
/path_to_matlab/matlab -desktop

then have polybar point to matlab_desktop instead of matlab, then the polybar menu will run it. It will also show up in dmenu/rofi since it is in the path. No idea why this works, but it does!

I realize this answer is specific to matlab, but I am sure it is applicable to any other application that will not start in dmenu/rofi/etc.