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anthonyclark

Member

From: WA,USA

Registered: 2007-10-07

Posts: 48

XFCE 4.8 Menu Config

Hey all,

Along with the other xfce users, I upgraded to XFCE 4.8 this morning as well. While I do understand that this is the first release of 4.8, I am having some issues.

I know you can edit menus in alacarte, and I do. But my exo-open links (Web Browser / File Manager / Terminal) are sorted at the bottom of the menu. Does anyone know a way to get the menu like it was in 4.6? Here is a screenshot of my menu ---> http://bit.ly/g3nkam. Maybe its because I imported my old menu config. But I created a new user and it complained that there was no default menu config .

Edit:: With the config taken from a machine I haven't upgraded to 4.8 to, here is what the menu looks like http://bit.ly/e2hEbZ. This is ALMOST it... this is just...uh... sorted by name? Any solutions?

Edit:: Seems like the menu parsing ignores / doesn't maintain 'old style' parsing of the following...

    <Include>
        <Category>X-Xfce-Toplevel</Category>
    </Include>

Having this your menu file WILL show "Help", "about", "Web Browser", etc... but it will not put these entries outside the menu (like in the menus for XFCE < 4.8)... guess I'll file a bug report. Thanks... any input / workarounds are welcome.

Last edited by anthonyclark (2011-01-18 19:29:05)

flan_suse

Member

Registered: 2010-10-28

Posts: 120

Re: XFCE 4.8 Menu Config

I was hit with the same problem as you when I went from XFCE 4.6 to 4.8. They say Xfce menus can be edited with alacarte (menu editor used in GNOME), but it's not very graceful. Anything you try to hide will instead by placed into the "Other" category.

What I did to deal with this menu problem is copy over everything from /usr/share/applications/* into ~/.local/share/applications/*

cp -v /usr/share/applications/* ~/.local/share/applications/

Then for any menu entry I don't want displayed, I just add NoDisplay=true

echo "NoDisplay=true" >> ~/.local/share/applications/driconf.desktop

You can also copy over /etc/xdg/menus/xfce-applications.menu to ~/.xfce-applications.menu and then tell the Applications Menu to use your custom menu file. It's easier to edit the .menu file that ships with XFCE 4.8, since the layout and sorting is already set for you.

If you find any useful tips or discover new tricks for working with XFCE menus, do share! This is one area that GNOME and KDE does well natively, which XFCE lacks.

Last edited by flan_suse (2011-01-30 05:10:02)

nemamradfazole

Member

Registered: 2010-03-18

Posts: 40

Website

Re: XFCE 4.8 Menu Config

Unfortunately the new version 0.1.5-1 of a package Garcon which owns /etc/xdg/menus/xfce-applications.menu is set linking to some non existent both .desktop and .directory files which leads to non translated names, anonymous icons and chaos in the ordering, so if you want to have the menu like this one - http://www.xfce.org/images/about/screenshots/4.8-3.png - fill your /etc/xdg/menus/xfce-applications.menu with this:

<!DOCTYPE Menu PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD Menu 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu-spec/1.0/menu.dtd">

<Menu>
    <Name>Xfce</Name>
    
    <DefaultAppDirs/>
    <DefaultDirectoryDirs/>
    
    <Include>
        <Category>X-Xfce-Toplevel</Category>
    </Include>

    <Layout>
        <Filename>xfrun4.desktop</Filename>
        <Separator/>
        <Filename>exo-terminal-emulator.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>exo-file-manager.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>exo-mail-reader.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>exo-web-browser.desktop</Filename>
        <Separator/>
        <Menuname>Settings</Menuname>
        <Separator/>
        <Merge type="all"/>
        <Separator/>
        <Filename>xfhelp4.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>xfce4-about.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>xfce4-session-logout.desktop</Filename>
    </Layout>

    <Menu>
        <Name>Settings</Name>
        <Directory>Settings.directory</Directory>
        <Include>
            <Category>Settings</Category>
        </Include>
        
        <Layout>
            <Filename>xfce-settings-manager.desktop</Filename>
            <Separator/>
            <Merge type="all"/>
        </Layout>
        
        <Menu>
            <Name>Screensavers</Name>
            <Directory>xfce-screensavers.directory</Directory>
            <Include>
                <Category>Screensaver</Category>
            </Include>
        </Menu>
    </Menu>


  <!-- Archlinux submenu -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Archlinux</Name>
    <Directory>Archlinux.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <Category>Archlinux</Category>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Archlinux -->

  <!-- Accessories submenu -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Accessories</Name>
    <Directory>Utility.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Utility</Category>
    <!-- Accessibility spec must have either the Utility or Settings
         category, and we display an accessibility submenu already for
         the ones that do not have Settings, so don't display accessibility
         applications here -->
        <Not><Category>Accessibility</Category></Not>
        <Not><Category>System</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Accessories -->

  <!-- Accessibility submenu -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Universal Access</Name>
    <Directory>Utility-Accessibility.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Accessibility</Category>
        <Not><Category>Settings</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Accessibility -->

  <!-- Development Tools -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Development</Name>
    <Directory>Development.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Development</Category>
      </And>
      <Filename>emacs.desktop</Filename>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Development Tools -->

  <!-- Education -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Education</Name>
    <Directory>Education.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Education</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Education -->

  <!-- Games -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Games</Name>
    <Directory>Game.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Game</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Games -->

  <!-- Graphics -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Graphics</Name>
    <Directory>Graphics.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Graphics</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Graphics -->

  <!-- Internet -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Internet</Name>
    <Directory>Network.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Network</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu>   <!-- End Internet -->

  <!-- Multimedia -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Multimedia</Name>
    <Directory>AudioVideo.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>AudioVideo</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu>   <!-- End Multimedia -->

  <!-- Office -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Office</Name>
    <Directory>Office.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>Office</Category>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Office -->

  <!-- System Tools-->
  <Menu>
    <Name>System</Name>
    <Directory>System-Tools.directory</Directory>
    <Include>
      <And>
        <Category>System</Category>
        <Not><Category>Settings</Category></Not>
      </And>
    </Include>
  </Menu>   <!-- End System Tools -->

  <!-- Other -->
  <Menu>
    <Name>Other</Name>
    <Directory>X-GNOME-Other.directory</Directory>
    <OnlyUnallocated/>
    <Include>
      <All/>
    </Include>
  </Menu> <!-- End Other -->

</Menu> <!-- End Applications -->

EDIT: On another computer I've found that garcon 0.1.5-1 owns needed files, it's strange the upgrade on the first computer hasn't installed them, but anyway - this content of xfce-applications.menu can be used if somebody has a similar problem.

Last edited by nemamradfazole (2011-02-15 00:08:29)

raijin

Member

Registered: 2010-11-21

Posts: 11

Re: XFCE 4.8 Menu Config

xfce4.8 /etc/xdg/menus/xfce-applications.menu <Layout> section:

<Layout>
        <Filename>xfrun4.desktop</Filename>
        <Separator/>
        <Filename>exo-terminal-emulator.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>exo-file-manager.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>exo-mail-reader.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>exo-web-browser.desktop</Filename>
        <Separator/>
        <Menuname>Settings</Menuname>
        <Separator/>
        <Merge type="all"/>
        <Separator/>
        <Filename>xfhelp4.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>xfce4-about.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>xfce4-session-logout.desktop</Filename>
    </Layout>

my xfce4.8 .config/menus/xfce-applications.menu <Layout> section after alacarte has made edits (which is now at the bottom of the file  for some reason)

<Layout>
        <Merge type="menus"/>
        <Separator/>
        <Separator/>
        <Separator/>
        <Menuname>alacarte-made-1</Menuname>
        <Menuname>Development</Menuname>
        <Menuname>Education</Menuname>
        <Menuname>Other</Menuname>
        <Menuname>alacarte-made-2</Menuname>
        <Menuname>Science</Menuname>
        <Menuname>System</Menuname>
        <Separator/>
        <Menuname>Settings</Menuname>
        <Merge type="files"/>
    </Layout>

it would seem alacarte doesn't handle the <Filename> entries. so if you want terminal, file manager, etc back at the top of the menu
paste those entries back into the file (in the spot you want them at).

My fixed menu <Layout> Section:

<Layout>
        <Merge type="menus"/>
        <Filename>exo-terminal-emulator.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>exo-file-manager.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>exo-mail-reader.desktop</Filename>
        <Filename>exo-web-browser.desktop</Filename>
        <Separator/>
        <Menuname>alacarte-made-1</Menuname>
        <Menuname>Development</Menuname>
        <Menuname>Education</Menuname>
        <Menuname>Other</Menuname>
        <Menuname>alacarte-made-2</Menuname>
        <Menuname>Science</Menuname>
        <Menuname>System</Menuname>
        <Separator/>
        <Menuname>Settings</Menuname>
        <Filename>xfrun4.desktop</Filename>
        <Merge type="files"/>
    </Layout>

A picture of it: http://i.imgur.com/ii9Xw.png

Last edited by raijin (2011-03-28 18:03:00)