Desktop Integration

TuxBlox wires itself into your desktop so Roblox behaves like any other application: it shows up in your applications menu, roblox: links open in it, and double clicking a place file opens Studio.

All of this is set up for you during install and kept up to date every time the launcher starts. You should not need to do anything on this page.

What appears in your applications menu

TuxBlox creates the Roblox entries itself as soon as Roblox is installed, so they are ready the first time you want to pin one to a taskbar or dock. Where Roblox has also left its own Start Menu shortcuts inside the virtual drive, TuxBlox reads those and republishes them instead, so the entries carry Roblox's own icons and names.

The icon on your desktop

The first time a Roblox program is installed, TuxBlox also puts an icon for it on your desktop. It opens whichever version you have at the time, so it keeps working after Roblox updates.

It is put there once. Updating Roblox does not bring it back, so if you delete it, it stays deleted. It is also kept out of your applications menu and search, because the entry described above already covers those and you would otherwise be offered the same program twice.

Removing TuxBlox takes these icons away again. It only removes the ones it wrote: an icon you made yourself is left alone, even if it has the same name.

Either way the entries are routed back through the launcher rather than at a fixed location, which is what lets them keep working after Roblox updates itself — they always start whichever version you have installed.

The TuxBlox entry also has a right click action for opening this documentation.

Links that open in TuxBlox

TuxBlox claims these URL schemes:

This is what makes the Play button on the Roblox website, and the Edit in Studio button on the Creator Hub, work from your browser.

When one of these links is opened, TuxBlox starts the right application directly. The launcher window does not appear.

Note

Firefox keeps its own separate list of protocol handlers. If Firefox keeps asking you what to open roblox: links with, or picks the wrong thing, that is Firefox's list rather than your desktop's. Firefox has to be closed to edit it, from Settings, then General, then Applications.

Place and model files

These are registered to open in Roblox Studio:

Double clicking one in your file manager opens Studio with it loaded, wherever the file happens to be on your disk. You do not have to move it into the virtual drive first, TuxBlox makes it reachable from inside.

TuxBlox does not take file types from other programs

If you already have something else set to open Roblox files or roblox: links, that stays. TuxBlox checks what each one is set to before changing anything, and claims only the ones nothing else has taken.

There is one exception, which is not silent: an association still pointing at a program you have since removed opens nothing at all, so TuxBlox treats that as free and claims it.

Updating TuxBlox does not change any of this either. It used to set TuxBlox back as the default for its own links on every install and every update, which quietly undid a choice you had made. It no longer does.

Links are claimed only once Roblox is installed

TuxBlox asks for a link type only when the Roblox app that opens it is actually in the virtual drive:

A link type whose app is not installed would open nothing, so claiming it would take the association for no benefit. A fresh install that has not downloaded Roblox yet leaves your roblox: links exactly where they were already going.

To hand a file type to another program, set it there, or in your desktop's default applications settings. The launcher will not take it back.

Where all this is written

Standard XDG locations in your home folder, nothing system wide:

Uninstalling TuxBlox removes all of them.

If the icons or entries are missing

Start the launcher once and let it sit for a few seconds. It rewrites every entry on startup and refreshes your desktop's icon and MIME caches, which usually fixes it on its own.

If entries still do not appear, your desktop may be caching aggressively. Logging out and back in forces a rescan.

Inside a Distrobox container

If TuxBlox is installed inside a Distrobox container, it also exports its entries to the host system so they appear in the host's applications menu rather than being trapped inside the container.

TuxBlox checks on startup whether the container has access to your graphics card and warns you if it does not. See Common Problems for what to do about that.

Discord

Roblox appearing on your Discord profile is integration of a different kind: it is a setting rather than something installed, and it is off until you turn it on. Enable Discord Rich Presence covers what it shows, what that reveals to anyone who can see your profile, and the two switches underneath it.