You are not logged in.

#1 2004-12-25 06:14:32

woodstock
Member
From: Toronto / Canada
Registered: 2004-11-21
Posts: 68

Program and Application Menus...

This is quite an annoying thing to go through and I'm not too sure if it's me missing something or if it's the way many packages are put together under Arch. (It's probably me :S)

When I install a program such as Firefox it doesn't seem to add itself to any of the system application menus. Gnome/KDE/Fluxbox whatever I use many of the programs I install aren't seen by the DE's and add to the app menus... It's quite annoying. I run them just fine though, through the console or through the run prompt.

In Slackware, Gentoo or whatever distro I've used before when I made a package and put it in /usr /opt or where ever the DE I was using would see the app and place in the in "start" menu (if thats what you call it) automatically.

Am I missing something or is this just how it is in Arch?

Sorry if this question has been asked before but I couldn't find an answer I was looking for, hence my posting smile.

Thank you in advance.


-- woodstock

Offline

#2 2004-12-25 08:45:49

woodstock
Member
From: Toronto / Canada
Registered: 2004-11-21
Posts: 68

Re: Program and Application Menus...

Ok, so I did a little more digging around the forum and it would seem that the only solution for now is to manually create lanuchers in the menus for each app you want. Not exactly what I was hoping for...

Im not too sure (correct me if I'm wrong) but apps have to make the DE aware of their existence correct? Using .desktop(?) files or similar. From what I understand gnome/kde/xfce4 all agreed to adapt to the freedesktop.org menu structure and soon enough this will no longer be a problem (as long as the app maker agree's as well, i dont see why not.)

I'll continue to look into this issue and post if I figure something out.

If you have something to add, plz do smile.


-- woodstock

Offline

#3 2004-12-25 16:59:39

sarah31
Member
From: Middle of Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 2,975
Website

Re: Program and Application Menus...

DE's handle menu in a slightly different way than most WM such as fluxbox. WM go by a kiss principle which basically mean theat the most control you have over your environment is when you do it yourself. Thusly menu maintennace is strictly up to the user. Most of their menus use an xml-like manner of creating menus.

DE's on the other hand can have dynamically created menu entries because all of the data for the entry is usually in a .desktop file. However, to have such a system work the application must first create the file when building and then that file has to be placed in the correct directory to be "seen". I am not if there is a dotfile that it they go to or whether they go to a directory in another place where config files are usually held such as /usr/share or /etc. Regardless you usually have to have someother script or something to help properly and dynamically create menus (from my understanding anyway) and making such a helper script was far more involved that was thought.

I don't know the status of looking at dynamic menu creation again. While it is a handy thing I am not one that likes it anymore because when I used linux I used a WM (blackbox) and whenever I installed one of those packages that had .desktop files for gnome or kde i ended out being stuck with all these new directories created for the menu entry and all these stupid .desktop files. It was annoying to have to clear this clutter out all the time.


AKA uknowme

I am not your friend

Offline

#4 2004-12-25 17:33:50

vicious
Member
Registered: 2004-11-09
Posts: 113

Re: Program and Application Menus...

Under GNOME, the applications menu is dynamic and doesn't cause any problems when (de)installing packages. The problem is that many packages doesn't have a .desktop file (or have a one without proper categories set). In some cases the package maintainer forgot to include the .desktop file which was distributed with the source. In other cases, the source distribution doesn't have the file and the packager is too lazy to write it by himself. On the other hand, it's so easy to grab the .desktop file from other distributions (like Gentoo) and include it.

If you find a desktop application the package of which doesn't include a desktop file, please file a bug or post a message to the forum so that the problem is noticed.

PACKAGE MAINTAINERS, PLEASE MIND INCLUDING PROPER DESKTOP FILES!!!

Offline

#5 2004-12-25 17:36:09

vicious
Member
Registered: 2004-11-09
Posts: 113

Re: Program and Application Menus...

sarah31 wrote:

While it is a handy thing I am not one that likes it anymore because when I used linux I used a WM (blackbox) and whenever I installed one of those packages that had .desktop files for gnome or kde i ended out being stuck with all these new directories created for the menu entry and all these stupid .desktop files. It was annoying to have to clear this clutter out all the time.

That's not true under GNOME! If you install a package and don't modify its menu entry, NO directory/file is created and uninstalling the package removes the menu entry.

Offline

#6 2004-12-25 18:53:04

woodstock
Member
From: Toronto / Canada
Registered: 2004-11-21
Posts: 68

Re: Program and Application Menus...

Thank you for all the replies.

I did more research and I decided to just modify the PKGBUILDS for these apps that don't install to the menu's properly.

Is there a place where I should post what I did to fix these packages?


-- woodstock

Offline

#7 2004-12-25 20:04:11

Notze
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2004-12-22
Posts: 46

Re: Program and Application Menus...

woodstock wrote:

Thank you for all the replies.

I did more research and I decided to just modify the PKGBUILDS for these apps that don't install to the menu's properly.

Is there a place where I should post what I did to fix these packages?

Perhaps a feature request or somethling like this to the maintainer.

Offline

#8 2004-12-25 20:09:47

woodstock
Member
From: Toronto / Canada
Registered: 2004-11-21
Posts: 68

Re: Program and Application Menus...

Well, I started another post in a different spot as I touch apon a different subject related to this one. http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=8847
Maybe it wasn't a good idea, but I felt the topic changed enough for a new post.


-- woodstock

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB