Frustrated: How can I get my own menus?

[Goatmilk]

Okay, I'm getting frustrated here. I cannot figure out how to sort out the menus in MX Linux. They may be perfectly fine for experienced users, but to poor little me they are a mess.

There are several different sets of menus - Whisker menu, Application menu, right click menus - all sorted differently from each other. One and the same program gets several different menu listings. For example Thunderbird. There is Thunderbird, of course. Then there's 'Mail Reader'. What's that? Why, it's Thunderbird. Why not call it Thunderbird, then? Why have another menu name?Guess the programmers thought folks might want to pick their own mail readers - but then, why not let them call their own mail readers by their names? Like, Outlook or Seamonkey or whatever there is these days. 'Mail Reader' says nothing, no one knows what program that's supposed to be. That's just one example. Same goes for 'web browser', 'application finder', 'Terminal Emulator' and 'xfce Terminal' etc. You have 'File Manager', you have 'File Manager Thunar', you have 'File Manager Settings Thunar' and you have 'Thunar File Manager', spread about various 'categories'. Don't get me started on the categories and all the programs sorted in more than one. Whisky Tango Foxtrot.

Of course, my first idea was to throw it all out, create my own menu where every program is listed but once - and only once and with its correct name - and sorted in categories I defined for myself. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be that easy.

I looked around in the webs, thinking there ought to be an easy click&done solution, as I figure the first thing every newbie wants to have on a new system is their own menus, to make it easier to find and go about stuff. All I found was MenuLibre (already installed on MX), where you can hide things. I don't want to hide things I don't need, I want them gone.

In the end, all I could find was information about "Bash Select Command for Building Linux Menus". Ugh...

Question - isn't there an easy-peasy way to have your own menus? Jeez I thought Linux was supposed to be so customizable?

And if there is no way around the bash script, isn't there a source for customizable scripts? You know, like there used to be for java script, where folks like me who were too dumb to write their own scripts could find ready-to-use scripts that were easily modified?

 

[ron.alan]

Then there's 'Mail Reader'

Where do you see that, in the main menu (button on the bottom-left of screen, usually)? You know you can change that, right? Right click "Mail Reader" and then select Edit properties.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@Goatmilk :-

This IS one of the peculiarities of the Whisker menu, unfortunately. You CAN remedy this by modifying the .desktop entry for any application in /usr/share/applications.

When developers put packages together, the .desktop entry - which is what generates your Menu entry - has to include localization lines for every possible supported language, along with special protocols'n'stuff for every possible combination of window manager/DE (desktop environment) you can think of, so.....consequently, these .desktop entries can often run into hundreds of lines.

This stuff is all specified by the guys at freedesktop.org, and is standardized across all Linux distros.

In Puppy Linux, we 'distill' this down to about 9 essential lines. The line you're interested in will be the one labelled "Categories". Here, you'll often find half-a-dozen or so category labels, each separated by a space and a semi-colon. To simplify things, just open the appropriate .desktop entry with your preferred text editor and delete the category labels you don't want/need. Remember to save when exiting!

I don't know what the procedure is for re-building the MX menu. In Puppy, we run

fixmenus

.....in the terminal, followed by 'jwm restart' (we use the JWM window manager rather than a full-blown Desktop Environment, to keep Puppy lightweight). But the above is a special Puppy script, so that wouldn't work for you. There will be a way to do it, you just need to find out what it is.......but that, essentially, is the 'manual method' to cut down the number of places a particular app will appear in the Menu.

Just list the ones you want to see it under. MX may even have a GUI method for editing this stuff, if you're lucky (many distros do these days).


Mike.

 

[atanere]

Question - isn't there an easy-peasy way to have your own menus? Jeez I thought Linux was supposed to be so customizable?

MX may even have a GUI method for editing this stuff, if you're lucky (many distros do these days).

MX does have an easy-peasy way to EDIT your default menu. Right-click on the "start button" (main menu button, whatever you want to call it, with the MX logo)... choose Edit Applications to get the Menu Editor. If you click on a major category on the left, like Internet or Games, it will give you an option on the right to hide the entire category, if you wish. If you expand the major categories on the left, you can click on individual applications and will have the option to hide them individually from the menus. It gives you up and down arrows to re-order the list of categories and applications, if you wish.

From the " + " menu in the upper left corner of the Menu Editor, you can add new launchers, directories (categories), and separators. I don't find an easy way to delete existing launchers except to simply uninstall any app you don't want, or to follow @MikeWalsh's wisdom to manually modify/delete the .desktop file(s). But you should have the power to reshape the Whisker menu to suit your needs with these controls. There is an easy way to delete any new launchers or categories you create yourself (a trashcan icon appears near the " + " menu).

Mail Reader (and Web Browser) are probably just symlinks back to Thunderbird and Firefox. Other distros rename apps like that too, not just MX. But if it bugs you greatly and hiding isn't good enough, and you want to destroy them off the face of the planet (and your hard drive).... then when you click on Mail Reader and Web Browser in the Menu Editor tool... it will show you on the lower right where those .desktop files are located. Go delete those files manually. That will probably do it.

Good luck!

 

[GatorsFan]

'Mail Reader'. What's that? Why, it's Thunderbird. Why not call it Thunderbird, then?

Mail reader is a plugin - it is designed to work with multiple different email clients - like Thunderbird, Claws, Evolution, Geary and a few others - if you do not want it can be removed through the Synaptic Package Manager

 

[atanere]

if you do not want it can be removed through the Synaptic Package Manager

Is it part of another package? Or have another name? I don't find it in Synaptic from a live USB of MX-Linux, but it does show up in the Menu Editor of the live version.

 

[GatorsFan]

Is it part of another package? Or have another name? I don't find it in Synaptic from a live USB of MX-Linux, but it does show up in the Menu Editor of the live version.

it is called "xfce4-mailwatch-plugin"

 

[atanere]

it is called "xfce4-mailwatch-plugin"

Well, I don't understand. That plugin is available in the MX Synaptic, but it's not installed (running live USB). Mail Reader does still work to call Thunderbird and is shown in the Menu Editor (see pics in spoiler).

It seems Mail Reader is something else, but it doesn't seem to be an installed binary either. which MailReader and which mailreader both return no result. The Menu Editor calls Mail Reader with exo-open --launch MailReader %u. The man page for exo-open indicates that Mail Reader is possibly a part of Xfce Preferred Applications framework, and I do find xfce4-helpers installed in Synaptic. Mail Reader and Web Browser may be contained in there, but I don't know.

The only way (so far) I can see to remove them (Mail Reader and Web Browser) is to Hide from the menus, or delete the .desktop files. (The .desktop files may be automatically restored later. I can't tell in the live USB, and I'm not a regular MX user.) It may work to uninstall xfce4-helpers from Synaptic, but that may break more things in the process. Telling Synaptic to remove xfce4-helpers says it will also remove xfce4-session and xfce4-settings.... and that sounds like it could cause trouble.

Spoiler: MX-Linux running on live USB

 

[atanere]

Telling Synaptic to remove xfce4-helpers says it will also remove xfce4-session and xfce4-settings.... and that sounds like it could cause trouble.

Yes, it does cause trouble. After I posted the comment above, I uninstalled xfce4-helpers and the others.... and I could not log out from the menu. Momentarily hitting the power button did give me an option to reboot or shutdown cleanly.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@atanere :-

We have a GUI method for doing what you've described in Puppy, Stan. It works via Puppy's aufs 'layering' file system; if you want to hide a Menu entry, ROX-filer essentially places what's called a 'whiteout' file directly above that .desktop entry in the next 'layer' up, then re-builds the Menu again.

Personally, all I do is to remove the .desktop entry in question completely, then rebuild. If I want it back at a later date, it's a 2-minute job to create a new one. (I've built so MANY of these over the last 5 or 6 years, I can pretty much do 'em with my eyes shut by now...and I long ago learnt how to completely re-arrange the Menu to suit myself.)

(shrug...)

As for 'launchers'.....you mean desktop icon launchers? Or the quick access shortcut launchers to the left of the tray? The former is handled through ROX-filer's 'pinboard' extension; in the latter case, one of our senior members long ago built a GUI which simply manipulates the multitude of scripts that go to make up JWM's operation; removal of a launcher takes around 4 clicks, IIRC.

One to bring up JWMdesk; one to select the appropriate tab; one to delete the item in question, and a final one to 'OK'/close the GUI.....which simultaneously restarts JWM. Bob's your uncle; done.

Well, it works for us.....


Mike.

 

[GatorsFan]

@atanere "Well, I don't understand. That plugin is available in the MX Synaptic, but it's not installed (running live USB). Mail Reader does still work to call Thunderbird and is shown in the Menu Editor"
-------------------------------------------------------
According to Debian - mail reader is a virtual package and so is www-browser The virtual packages only exist logically, not physically.
See here

Debian -- Details of package mail-reader in bookworm

Debian -- Details of package www-browser in bookworm

The program is exo-open located in /usr/bin/ which is the same for either Mail Reader or Web Browser
which is part of exo-utils which is in the Synaptic Package Manager
see here

Debian -- Details of package exo-utils in bookworm

and only part of Xfce as far as I can tell

 

[atanere]

As for 'launchers'.....you mean desktop icon launchers?

I was trying to use the language that the MX Menu Editor uses. I had already goofed up using the term "categories".... the Menu Editor describes those as Directories.

Spoiler: Here is the expanded " + " menu of the Menu Editor to show their terms

I looked around in the webs, thinking there ought to be an easy click&done solution, as I figure the first thing every newbie wants to have on a new system is their own menus, to make it easier to find and go about stuff. All I found was MenuLibre (already installed on MX), where you can hide things. I don't want to hide things I don't need, I want them gone.

The MenuLibre Menu Editor is the method provided by MX and XFCE. MX-Linux with the KDE Desktop may provide a more desirable menu environment for you. It's different, at any rate, if you are ultimately not satisfied with the Whisker menu and XFCE. And there are other distros and other desktops. Your search to find the right one for you may not be over. But you are learning, and that is exactly "how you find and go about stuff" in Linux!

Personally, all I do is to remove the .desktop entry in question completely

This is the simplest solution to remove Mail Reader and Web Browser. It effectively removes them from the Menu Editor and Whisker menus without uninstalling any other critical XFCE components. The files to delete are:
/usr/share/applications/xfce4-mail-reader.desktop
/usr/share/applications/xfce4-web-browser.desktop

I have no idea how to uninstall the "virtual packages" described by @GatorsFan... or whether doing so may cause other troubles, like uninstalling xfce4-helpers did.

 

[GatorsFan]

I have no idea how to uninstall the "virtual packages" described by @GatorsFan... or whether doing so may cause other troubles, like uninstalling xfce4-helpers did.

You cannot remove virtual packages, you need to remove the real packages from which the 'virtual' ones was referenced or is created from. - in this case it is exo-utils which creates the virtual packages Mail Reader and Web Browser - with that said exo-utils also controls exo-desktop-item-edit - so I think if you remove it you will no longer be able to edit items of the desktop - so my advice is to leave it alone

 

[atanere]

I think if you remove it you will no longer be able to edit items of the desktop - so my advice is to leave it alone

Synaptic says removing exo-utils will also remove thunar, xfce4-panel, and xfdesktop4. So, of course, I tried it on this spare laptop anyway. It's toast now... don't do it.

And remember that Linux will absolutely let you do dumb things.

There may be alternatives to the MenuLibre Menu Editor, but I have no experience changing menu systems. I've never even considered doing that. I'm usually able to work with the tools provided by each distro.

Shopping for a new distro/desktop would probably be my next step, if "hiding" is unacceptable.

 

[Goatmilk]

Oh well, I struggled on and wrecked my Linux - even though at first the menu looked promising. But, after restart and an update it totally messed up, with double entries and whatnot. Jeez, I must've done something wrong...

I thought this would be a good time to do my first Timeshift restore, but - who'da thunk it? - the restored version came up with the same wrecked menus. Even though the last Timeshift snapshot was done several hours BEFORE I'd messed up the menus. What the...?

After this very Windows-like experience, I remembered the life usb I'd done from the MX Snapshot and installed that one. And again - the same wrecked up menus. This thing was done DAYS before I ever touched the menus.

Looking back, I probably should've reformatted the whole drive, as it seems the restores simply thought there was nothing wrong with the existing version and saved the effort or didn't bother, even though pretending they had 'successfully restored' the system. Begs the question what exactly they are good for?

('Fess up, guys! What else of those much trumpeted Linux wonders won't work as heralded?)

Anyhow, I then decided to take the very first dvd I had and completely reinstall MX. But, since I had to wipe the laptop anyway, I thought I could have a glimpse at the kde version, downloaded it and burned a new dvd. I had looked at kde before, but thought it would be too much for my little old laptop and went for xfce.

But surprise, surprise, kde went smoother than I thought. It looks nicer, more newbie-friendly. I easily cleaned out the menus, as it does have another menu editor. It doesn't really boot any slower than xfce, not that I've timed it. I think if I won't stuff it with a ton of programs the laptop should be fine with it.

It did come with a few quirks - and I guess I'll open yet another thread for those as they have nothing to do with menus - but so far I like it better than the xfce. It seems more customizable, and, knowing me, I probably won't give up until I'm able to create my own desktop theme, up to the very last pixel on the screen.

So I guess I'll keep it. And keep that installation dvd handy, just in case... lol

Still, I do wonder why those backups/snapshots/restores failed the way they did.