Perhaps I missed something when Canonical removed the "Create launcher" option from the right click menu, because I've really been missing that little guy. For me, it was the preferred way to install software that comes not in a .deb, but in a tar.gz, for example. (Note: in that tar.gz I have a folder with the compiled files, I'm NOT compiling from source)

I just downloaded the new Eclipse IDE and extracted the tar.gz to my /usr folder. Now, I'd like to add it to my desktop and dash so it can be started easily. Intuitively I would right click the desktop and create a launcher. After this I'd copy the .desktop to /usr/share/applications. However, creating a launcher is not possible.

My question: How would you install an already compiled tar.gz that you have downloaded from the internet?

Below are a few things I've seen, but these are all more time-consuming than the right click option. If you have any better ideas, please let me know. Thanks!

Manual copy & create a .desktop file: manually

Simply extract the archive to /usr. Create a new text file, adding something along the lines of the code block below:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Exec="/usr/local/eclipse42/eclipse"
Name="Eclipse 4.2"
Icon=/home/tomas/icons/eclipse.svg

Rename this file to eclipse42.desktop and make it executable. Then copy this to /usr/share/applications.

Manually copy & create a .desktop file: GUI

fossfreedom has elaborated on this in How can I create launchers on my desktop? Basically it involves the command:

gnome-desktop-item-edit --create-new ~/Desktop

After creating the launcher, copy it to /usr/share/applications.