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.
On Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:36:40 -0800 John Jason Jordan johnxj@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.
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@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.
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
On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:46:02 +0100 Christoph Wickert christoph.wickert@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.
On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:09:04 -0800 John Jason Jordan johnxj@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.
On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:39:34 -0800 John Jason Jordan johnxj@comcast.net dijo:
On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:09:04 -0800 John Jason Jordan johnxj@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.
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Christoph Wickert -
John Jason Jordan -
Martin Sourada