Comment 13 for bug 695437

It's true that Ubuntu has stopped shipping with the appropriate editing tool, but you can just install it with

    sudo apt-get install gnome-desktop-item-edit

You could then proceed to write a Nautilus script like this:

    #!/bin/bash

    gnome-desktop-item-edit --create-new ~/.local/share/applications

and install it by moving it to ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts. That gives you easy access to .desktop file creation from your file manager's context menu.

This is not as straightforward as it was on earlier versions of Ubuntu, but that's not Synapse's fault. I don't think Synapse's developers should have to fix Canonical's strange packaging decisions.