Tip - Gnome: create menu entries for all users

Moo-Crumpus · 2004-03-14 10:04:07

(Howto Draft)
Most of gnome users complain about the menu. It is somehow bad documentated, how menu entries are changed systemwhide.

You find gnome menu entries as 'appname.desktop' objects inside /opt/gnome/share/applications. Edit one of them, you can take one to be a draft. Edit it to fit your needs for a new to be integrated application, save it. In common, you will set this object's rights to 644 (root: rw group: r others: r), so all users can see it. You may also have different user rights, maybe some menu entries should only be available for a group / one user? This object's rights are the place to tweak it.

Here is an example how an Scite menu entry definition file could look like:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=SciTE
Comment=SciTE editor
Type=Application
Exec=/usr/bin/scite
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/scite_48x48.png
Terminal=false
Categories=GNOME;Application;Development;
StartupNotify=true

andy · 2004-03-14 12:10:01

Why don't you put it in the Wiki ? Then I could just edit it - now I have to explain ;-) ...

Anyways, I would also point out the difference to user-only menue entries. I beleive they can be created by clicking through the menues and then there are similar files in a dot-directory in the users' home directory.

Note, I'm not using Gnome, but somebody like me would probably first want to see some documentation BEFORE (s)he installs such a large packet just to find out that it can or can't do what (s)he wants.

And last, I would advise the user to think about which menu items to make available system wide and which ones not.

Moo-Crumpus · 2004-03-14 12:32:25

I just learned how to use the wiki, and will put it there soon.

Xentac · 2004-03-14 19:37:35

There's already talk about using the Debian menu program like I mentioned before (and was mentioned in the newsletter last week, if you'd cared to read it). Menu items for specific WMs shouldn't need to be added once it's implemented.

andy · 2004-03-14 19:52:33

I did read it and I did note the Debian menu part ;-)

However, users might want to add menu items for non-Arch things, like VMware, some commercial games etc.

Moo-Crumpus · 2004-03-14 20:45:54

Fore sure, I read it. But does it mean to lay the hands down? And what has it to do with adding files to a package, that are not part of the source tarball...

I think there could be always be a reason for adding some more files - that was what I was asking for. In this case, the file could be a menu entry, next time a desktop object, maybe in form of a readme that gives users a short briefing. A fancy icon? Who knows :!:

Although there will be a debian app to do menu entires, 'some times after release of 0.6', it is good to know how menu entries are done in gnome. It was a goal of arch, I thought, to know how things are done and let users do what they need to do.

Debian menues never have been without discussion. The nice thing was, all menues look the same in debian. The bad thing was, the debian menues where allways not well organized, broke the current environment logic. A lot of people where glad to use the light-wight ximian menues, the overfilled kde menues or gnome 2.4 menues instead. Afaik, it is no good idea to transfer this mess to arch, but thats only my opinion. Personally, I would prefer to set my menues the way I like - if I know how to do that for my windows managing system.

Xentac · 2004-03-14 20:55:44

Ok, I do agree that the information you have provided is a useful explaination of how gnome desktop files work. I'm not contesting that.

I just think it'd be a bad idea to add custom .desktop files to packages. That's my point.

The beauty of the way we're planning on using the menu system is that you don't have to use it, but can use it if you want to. We're not going to force anyone to have it.

What do you mean by "lay the hands down"? My point was that the menu program will handle the creation of menu items for every window manager, instead of including one for each inside the package.

We try not to add too many fancy bells and whistles to our packages, they are the packages that the upstream developers wanted.

Just because we're using the technology of the menu system doesn't mean we'll be using it the same way and incuring the same problems. Organisation is an implementation issue, not a problem with the menu application.

I don't know of these environment logic problems you're talking about.

As I said before, the menu system will be an option, not forced on anyone. I have no problem with you setting up your menus the way you want them; just don't force your menus on other people by including your desktop files in their packages.

Moo-Crumpus · 2004-03-15 06:35:29

I think we don't really differ.

To tell more about the update-menu-problems, I fetched the documentation.

One problem we ran into with menu-1.x (and before) was that the number of entries in any submenu vary wildly: on my system there are only two entries in /Apps/Editors, while I'm sure that other people have more like 20 entries there. Many people complained about the fullness of certain submenus, citing scientific studies or personal experience to explain why overfull or underfull submenus are a bad thing.

The good news is, meanwhile they use menu-2.x, and it seems they solved the mess. I am curios, how it will do in arch.

If anyone is interested, here is the debian updsate-menu-docu: http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-man … l/ch1.html

Arch Linux

#1 2004-03-14 10:04:07

Tip - Gnome: create menu entries for all users

#2 2004-03-14 12:10:01

Re: Tip - Gnome: create menu entries for all users

#3 2004-03-14 12:32:25

Re: Tip - Gnome: create menu entries for all users

#4 2004-03-14 19:37:35

Re: Tip - Gnome: create menu entries for all users

#5 2004-03-14 19:52:33

Re: Tip - Gnome: create menu entries for all users

#6 2004-03-14 20:45:54

Re: Tip - Gnome: create menu entries for all users

#7 2004-03-14 20:55:44

Re: Tip - Gnome: create menu entries for all users

#8 2004-03-15 06:35:29

Re: Tip - Gnome: create menu entries for all users

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