unity cannot create items for user-installed programs by itself and gnome-desktop-item add function crashes

[Susan Cragin]

I have added a non-Ubuntu program.
There is no way to add an icon except to do the following:

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

This works, except that it forces you to accept the default icon, which is gnome-panel-launcher.
If you try to change the icon, it crashes.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: unity 5.12-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.4.0-5.11-generic 3.4.0
Uname: Linux 3.4.0-5-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.2.3-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Jun 15 09:08:13 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Alpha amd64 (20120609.1)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)