9:36 p.m.
I'm new to this list. :)
I have had XFCE installed for some time on my Fedora 16 x86_64 laptop,
but used it only as an emergency desktop in case I messed up Gnome. But
after upgrading from Fedora 14 to Fedora 16 I have become a Gnome 3
refugee, and I am coming to like XFCE a lot.
My XFCE application menu is pretty messed up. I have extra folders and
application entries are scattered in the wrong folders. One new folder
is "Other," and it appears that XFCE stuck everything it didn't know
what to do with into it. Every time I go to launch a seldom-used
application it takes a long time to wade through the folders trying
to find it.
After hours of googling none of the suggestions that I have found for
editing the application menus work. For example, apparently there are
desktop entries in /usr/share and in ~/.local/share/applications, but I
can't find desktop files for some of the items that appear in the menu.
I also can't find any place where the folders are listed.
Alacarte ran briefly after the upgrade from 14 to 16, but after nearly
a thousand software updates it won't launch at all. And when it did
launch it showed only the menu that I was using in Gnome. I'd be happy
to have the Gnome menu if there was a way to migrate it to XFCE. (I
haven't ever actually logged in to Gnome since the upgrade to Fedora
16.)
I really need to edit the application menus. I hope someone here can
tell me the secret. I don't mind doing it manually; I just need clear
instructions.
10:19 p.m.
On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:36:40 -0800
John Jason Jordan <johnxj(a)comcast.net> dijo:
I really need to edit the application menus. I hope someone here can
tell me the secret. I don't mind doing it manually; I just need clear
instructions.
I just discovered that the application menu is called Applications Menu
and it is a widget installed in the panel. Right-clicking > Properties
gets me a dialog box with some options, among which are:
Menu File
* Use the default menu ["Edit Menu" button]
o Use custom menu file:
Menu file: [Button to browse for file]
By default it is set to "Use the default menu," but when I click on the
button to edit the menu nothing happens.
Setting it to "Use custom menu" enables the button to browse for a
file, but I have no idea what kind of file it is looking for or what
kind of syntax it requires.
3:25 a.m.
On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:19:32 -0800
John Jason Jordan wrote:
On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:36:40 -0800
John Jason Jordan <johnxj(a)comcast.net> dijo:
>I really need to edit the application menus. I hope someone here can
>tell me the secret. I don't mind doing it manually; I just need clear
>instructions.
I just discovered that the application menu is called Applications
Menu and it is a widget installed in the panel. Right-clicking >
Properties gets me a dialog box with some options, among which are:
Menu File
* Use the default menu ["Edit Menu" button]
o Use custom menu file:
Menu file: [Button to browse for file]
By default it is set to "Use the default menu," but when I click on
the button to edit the menu nothing happens.
Well, that's not entirely true -- actually it launches alacarte, which
however silently crashes...
Setting it to "Use custom menu" enables the button to
browse for a
file, but I have no idea what kind of file it is looking for or what
kind of syntax it requires.
I have no idea either.
3:46 a.m.
Ho John!
Am Dienstag, den 22.11.2011, 19:36 -0800 schrieb John Jason Jordan:
After hours of googling none of the suggestions that I have found
for
editing the application menus work. For example, apparently there are
desktop entries in /usr/share and in ~/.local/share/applications, but I
can't find desktop files for some of the items that appear in the menu.
I also can't find any place where the folders are listed.
/usr/share/desktop-directories
Alacarte ran briefly after the upgrade from 14 to 16, but after
nearly
a thousand software updates it won't launch at all.
I doubt it was ever running because it is incompatible with GNOME 3.0:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=657512
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=734442
I really need to edit the application menus. I hope someone here can
tell me the secret. I don't mind doing it manually; I just need clear
instructions.
Did you already read http://wiki.xfce.org/howto/customize-menu ? I doubt
you will have to edit xfce-applications.menu, most things can be done by
adding proper categories to the *.desktop files. When you add some, make
sure to use the registered values from
http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html
Regards,
Christoph
12:09 p.m.
On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:46:02 +0100
Christoph Wickert <christoph.wickert(a)googlemail.com> dijo:
> After hours of googling none of the suggestions that I have found
for
> editing the application menus work. For example, apparently there are
> desktop entries in /usr/share and in ~/.local/share/applications,
> but I can't find desktop files for some of the items that appear in
> the menu. I also can't find any place where the folders are listed.
/usr/share/desktop-directories
That folder contains many text files, all with different names and
mostly the same content. However, most do not actually appear in the
XFCE menu. Looking inside each one with Gedit I don't see any reason
why some appear and others do not. Nor do I see any clear way to make a
new folder.
> Alacarte ran briefly after the upgrade from 14 to 16, but after
> nearly a thousand software updates it won't launch at all.
I doubt it was ever running because it is incompatible with GNOME
3.0:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=657512
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=734442
Perhaps I misremembered. I actually installed XFCE a couple of years
ago shortly after moving from Ubuntu to Fedora. I installed it only as
an emergency desktop so I would have something to log in with in case I
messed up Gnome. I never actually used it. But I had already tried out
the Fedora 16 live CD and I knew that Gnome 3 was not for me, so before
the upgrade to Fedora 16 I started getting XFCE set up. It may be that
it was then that Alacarte ran. But, in any event, it did not display
the XFCE menu; it displayed the menu I had in Gnome 2.3.2. I never
actually tried to use it.
> I really need to edit the application menus. I hope someone here
can
> tell me the secret. I don't mind doing it manually; I just need clear
> instructions.
Did you already read http://wiki.xfce.org/howto/customize-menu ? I
doubt you will have to edit xfce-applications.menu, most things can be
done by adding proper categories to the *.desktop files. When you add
some, make sure to use the registered values from
http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html
Yes, I did read the wiki. I didn't understand most of it. I did try to
use LXMenuEditor, but it was not listed in the repos. A couple days
later, upon re-reading the wiki I googled on LXMenuEditor and
discovered that it is a Java application. I downloaded it and got it
running, so a lot of my problems are now resolved.
However, LXMenuEditor doesn't have the ability to created, delete, or
edit a folder; it can only operate on application entries within a
folder. I have some folders that are mis-named, and
the /usr/share/desktop-directories folder doesn't help.
I am especially confused about the application desktop entries. First,
I find them in my home folder, but not all the application desktop
entries are there; a lot of applications are listed in the menu for
which there is no application desktop file.
And I cannot figure out what decides what folder an application will be
listed under. Looking at the text of an application desktop file I find
its location as (e.g.) Settings, but the item actually appears in
System Tools. I'm trying to figure out the system here, and so far it
is not making any sense. But there must be a system. I just need to get
a grip on it.
Thanks to all for the suggestions.
7:39 p.m.
On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:09:04 -0800
John Jason Jordan <johnxj(a)comcast.net> dijo:
>Did you already read http://wiki.xfce.org/howto/customize-menu ?
I
>doubt you will have to edit xfce-applications.menu, most things can be
>done by adding proper categories to the *.desktop files. When you add
>some, make sure to use the registered values from
>http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html
I am especially confused about the application desktop entries.
First,
I find them in my home folder, but not all the application desktop
entries are there; a lot of applications are listed in the menu for
which there is no application desktop file.
And I cannot figure out what decides what folder an application will be
listed under. Looking at the text of an application desktop file I find
its location as (e.g.) Settings, but the item actually appears in
System Tools. I'm trying to figure out the system here, and so far it
is not making any sense. But there must be a system. I just need to get
a grip on it.
To clarify further the problem, after several hours editing the menus
with LXMenuEditor, here are the first few items in my applications
menu, hand typed out in Gedit and pasted here. This is as far as I can
get with LXMenuEditor. (Hope the tabs make it in the e-mail.):
Run Program
------------------
Terminal emulator <harmless, but I don't need this>
File Manager <ditto>
Mail Reader <ditto>
We Browser <ditto>
------------------
Settings
Settings Manager
------------------
Accessibility
Appearance
Bluetooth
Bluetooth Manager
Desktop
Display
Keyboard
Mouse
Panel
Power Manager
Preferred Applications
Qt4 Config
Session and Startup
Settings Editor
Window Manager
Window Manager Tweaks
Workspaces
Xfce4 Printing System Settings
Accessories
Add/Remove Software
Back in Time-KDE
Logical Volume Management
Network Device Control
NVIDIA X Server Settings
Service Management
Software Update
-----------------
Accessories <Note this is the second Accessories menu>
About Myself
<40 more entries, many of which belong in a Settings
folder, which I do not have>
Documentation
<two entries>
Education
<four entries, all my special programs, of which one
is duplicated and I can't find the duplicate to delete
it>
Games
<I want to delete this entire folder. I made every entry I can
find "not visible," yet two still appear.>
Graphics
<a folder that is actually correct>
Internet
<ok, but has three entries for Chrome and two for Claws-Mail
and I can't find the duplicates>
Office
<a folder that is actually correct>
Programming
<contains six items, and I can't find any of them to make
them not visible>
Sound and Video
<a folder that is actually correct>
System
<contains over 50 apps, a third of which should be in Settings,
if I had a Settings folder
The wiki refers to moving files here and there, but I don't have any of
the files it refers to. The wiki has no information about what to do if
the files don't exist.
For example, the wiki says "To create a new sub-menu, add a new “Menu”
element to your ~/.config/menus/xfce-applications.menu at the same
level as the other xfdesktop sub-menus like “Graphics." Fine, but I
don't have a ~/.config/menus/xfce-applications.menu file. I don't have
any idea where XFCE is getting the information it is using to display
the application menu above, and the wiki doesn't say.
12:46 a.m.
On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:39:34 -0800
John Jason Jordan <johnxj(a)comcast.net> dijo:
On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:09:04 -0800
John Jason Jordan <johnxj(a)comcast.net> dijo:
>>Did you already read http://wiki.xfce.org/howto/customize-menu ? I
>>doubt you will have to edit xfce-applications.menu, most things can
>>be done by adding proper categories to the *.desktop files. When you
>>add some, make sure to use the registered values from
>>http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html
I have made some progress editing the xfce-applications.menu file, but
some things are not working the way I expect. At this point I have made
a lot of changes and, unfortunately, I must have *moved* the file
from /usr/share instead of making a *copy* of the file (which was my
intent), so I no longer have the original. If someone can send me their
xfce-applications.menu file it would be great. Actually, the part I'm
having difficulty with is just the first 50 lines (through the end of
the Layout section), so it would be possible just to copy and paste it
here.
4534
days inactive
4536
days old
6 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
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Christoph Wickert -
John Jason Jordan -
Martin Sourada