How do I edit drop-down menus? Lucid 5.2.0 with xfce

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Eathray
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How do I edit drop-down menus? Lucid 5.2.0 with xfce

#1 Post by Eathray »

Hi all,

I've been building my own Puppy, I've started over 5 times, and I guess I finally have some clarity about what I want to accomplish...

I have switched to XFCE in Lucid 5.2.0, and I love almost everything about it, but it makes a bit of a mess of the drop-down menus.

Is there a menu editing .pet for Lucid? I've seen one for the 4. series, or is there clear directions posted somewhere about how to edit and clean up your menus?

Mainly I'm looking to clean up the drop-down menus on the desktop (right-click) but the bottom left menu button as well.

Thanks. Even though I've become a pretty competent Puppy user, this is all new territory to me... :oops:

Eathray

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Eathray
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#2 Post by Eathray »

Well, I've made a little bit of progress. I'll post about it when I'm further along, but I could still use some input from some of you guys more knowledgeable than myself about customizing the desktop.

One thing I've learned is that xfce combines several menu lists, so editing one doesn't cut it. I have to find them all. I've found two so far, and I also found out that lxmed will edit the xfce side of the menu... but not the jwm side. I'm going to dumb jwm eventually since xfce can do everything alone, but I don't want to do that until I have everything set up in xfce first.

I'll post again. Input, please. I know most of you have a lot more know how than I do.

Thanks,

Eathray

disciple
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#3 Post by disciple »

I don't really understand how or why you can have both an xfce menu and a jwm menu. Are you running the full XFCE? Or just the taskbar or something?

Normally you wouldn't edit the start menu on Linux, because it is all arranged into nice logical categories. But if you do want to edit it, you can change individual menu entries by editing the .desktop files (normally in /usr/share/applications; this is what lxmed does), and you edit the menu structure by editing the files in /etc/xdg/menus

Some window managers like JWM require you to run `fixmenus` and then restart them (or reboot) before you see any changes.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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#4 Post by smokey01 »

Eathray try this:
http://www.smokey01.com/saluki/pet_pack ... er-2.0.pet

This is what jemimah uses in Saluki and it uses the XFCE window manager.

Worth a try.

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Eathray
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#5 Post by Eathray »

smokey01 wrote:Eathray try this:
http://www.smokey01.com/saluki/pet_pack ... er-2.0.pet

This is what jemimah uses in Saluki and it uses the XFCE window manager.

Worth a try.
Smokey,

Thanks for dropping in. I'm sure I haven't explained it as well as I should. I've never done anything significant to the desktop before.

The version of xfce I'm using is from the Puppy Lucid repository, and it appears to be the full or a near-full version. I have switched with the 'xwin startxfce-4' command and it's all up and running, not jwm...

However, the jwm menu entries seem to still be in play, such as from jwmrc. The sub-menus seem to all follow that menu rather then the xfce menu in etc/xdg/menus. Also, in the main menu drop-down, some stuff was added by xfce like 'file manager' and 'terminal,' even though those entries already exist in sub-categories. Other categories like Desktop are missing, and everything in it has been combined with another category 'settings.' There's just some quirky things about it that's kind of messy.

I found some info here: http://wiki.xfce.org/howto/customize-menu

This is where it said that xfce would combine other menus with it's own, and that seems to be the case in the sub-menus here. Also, I've managed to change all my menu icons, but the sub-menu icons seem to be a combination of the original ones and the ones I added. I think I found the menu entry for those icons, so... maybe just some pasting with fix that.

The lxmed tool does in fact make changes to the xfce menu, so 'Yay,' I fixed a couple things, like removing 'file manager' from the main menu when it's already in the sub-menu and a top panel icon (how many places do I need the same button, anyway?).

I've installed the pet you mentioned... so far doesn't work. Do you know the terminal command to launch it? would it just be, 'xmenumaker' ? Saluki is Racy I think; fully compatible with Lucid?

Okay, that's what I got so far...

Eathray

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Eathray
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#6 Post by Eathray »

This is what I got when I tried to launch xmenumaker from the terminal a couple times:

[img]file:///root/my-documents/clipart/xmenumaker-terminal-results.png[/img]

hopefully I did that right :oops:

Eathray
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disciple
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#7 Post by disciple »

gtkdialog is probably somewhere else like /usr/bin - check by running `which gtkdialog`.
You can either make a symlink to it in /usr/sbin, or edit the xmenumaker script to use the correct path.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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#8 Post by smokey01 »

It may also be possible that the gtkdialog is too old. I think jemimah is using a later version in Saluki.
gtkdialog version 0.8.0 (C) 2003-2007 Laszlo Pere, 2011 Thunor

disciple
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#9 Post by disciple »

smokey01 wrote:It may also be possible that the gtkdialog is too old.
The error message would be different if that were the case.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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#10 Post by Eathray »

Disciple and Smokey,

Okay, thanks guys. here's what I found:

In user/bin all I found was 'gtkdialog-splash.'

When I run the command: 'xmenumaker which gtkdialog' I got the following reply: /usr/sbin/xmenumaker

In user/sbin I found 'gtkdialog2' and 'gtkdialog3' but no 'gtkdialog.' 'xmenumaker' is also there, an executable file.

What if I make a blank file called 'gtkdialog' and symlink it to 'gtkdialog2?' Would that work?

Eathray

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#11 Post by Eathray »

Additional:

I just ran pfind and all I got is gtkdialog2 and gtkdialog3 with various files associated... no gtkdialog.

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#12 Post by Eathray »

Eathray wrote: What if I make a blank file called 'gtkdialog' and symlink it to 'gtkdialog2?' Would that work?

Eathray
Hmm... didn't work. Maybe there's something there I don't know.

Eathray

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#13 Post by Eathray »

Okay, how 'bout this... Can you guys help me organize my thoughts?

Here's a pic of what I'm dealing with:

See below attachment... pic was too wide to paste

You notice that the drop-down menu on the left does not seem to correspond with what lxmed lists as the catagories (middle).

I don't understand why there's such a dramatic difference aside from xfce is not utilizing it's own list of catagories... is jwm still running that show, or is xfce inter-mixing various lists as the xfce site suggests?

If I were to simply dump jwm, would xfce use it's own list?

Thanks

Eathray[/i]
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#14 Post by smokey01 »

I'm pretty sure they look different because the source files are different and have no relationships.

I don't know much about xfce but it should come with some sort of gui to help you manage the menus. I'm sure saluki does anyway. It might we worth having a look at saluki to check.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

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#15 Post by disciple »

Eathray wrote:Disciple and Smokey,

Okay, thanks guys. here's what I found:

In user/bin all I found was 'gtkdialog-splash.'

When I run the command: 'xmenumaker which gtkdialog'
You wouldn't run that, just `which gtkdialog`
I got the following reply: /usr/sbin/xmenumaker

In user/sbin I found 'gtkdialog2' and 'gtkdialog3' but no 'gtkdialog.' 'xmenumaker' is also there, an executable file.
Oh, sorry, I misread your error message - it was indicating there is no gtkdialog anywhere in the path, so there was actually no need to look for it with `which`.
What if I make a blank file called 'gtkdialog' and symlink it to 'gtkdialog2?' Would that work?
Well, something can either be a blank file or a symlink, not both. Unless xmenumaker is extremely old, it will be expecting either gtkdialog3 or gtkdialog4. Try creating gtkdialog as a symlink to gtkdialog3, and it will probably work.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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#16 Post by disciple »

If I were to simply dump jwm, would xfce use it's own list?
Removing JWM won't help anything - JWM has no influence on the menus shown by other software.
I think the problem is that XFCE is using its own (i.e. different from the standard Puppy one that JWM would use) menu structure. And I think lxmed is using its own menu structure too (from memory I think what it shows in your screenshot is the standard LXDE menu structure, not the standard Puppy menu structure).
I have seen references to using lxmed with XFCE, but I'm not sure how to make it look at a particular structure. Looking at this I'm wondering if maybe it isn't even possible (without modifying lxmed): http://lxmed.sourceforge.net/help.html#category
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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#17 Post by Eathray »

Disciple and Smokey,

Okay, I had a little success with xmenumaker. I couldn't figure out at first how to do a symlink in thunar (the xfce file manager) because all the directions I found were crazy/nuts/complicated.

Then I found something somewhere that said to drag a file to desktop/symlink option, which I found in right-clicking gtkdialog3. So I moved/symed gtkdialog3 to desktop, renamed it 'gtkdialog' then moved it back to /usr/sbin, and sure enough, it's now a symlink to gtkdialog3.

I clicked xmenumaker, and i'll be, it opened for the first time :shock:

I have no idea how to use it yet, but knowing I can is awesome :!:

More to come 8)

Eathray

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#18 Post by Eathray »

I'm making progress on the sub-menu icons. Below is an example:

[img]file:///root/my-documents/clipart/sub-menu-icons.png[/img]

I've got a section done and bits and pieces throughout the sub-menu selections, but wow... this is a really slow process. I've been copying the name of the icons I want to use, then opening the desktop files in Geany, and replacing the line that says Icon=whatever.pic-of-my-choice.

It works, but it's really time consuming. I thought of just replacing everything, but I don't think I can do that because the new icons I downloaded will not match up with the names of the icons in the desktop folder, so as far as I know, it's a manual gig.

If anyone knows a faster way, I would mucho appreciate hearing about it.

Thanks, and any input is always welcome on this project. I've never done this before, remember.

Thanks all, and more to come.

Eathray
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disciple
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#19 Post by disciple »

If you're just trying to change the icons, I think you're going about it the "wrong" way. Instead of editing the .desktop files, find out how to create an icon theme. That way you can share it, or reuse it on another system, and it won't be destroyed when you update puppy or individual programs. But you can probably find an existing theme that you like and save yourself a lot of work...
Or are you saying you have found a theme, but it doesn't work with Puppy? I think Puppy icon themes might be slightly incompatible with normal ones, but I don't know.
Do you know a good gtkdialog program? Please post a link here

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#20 Post by Eathray »

disciple wrote:If you're just trying to change the icons, I think you're going about it the "wrong" way. Instead of editing the .desktop files, find out how to create an icon theme. That way you can share it, or reuse it on another system, and it won't be destroyed when you update puppy or individual programs. But you can probably find an existing theme that you like and save yourself a lot of work...
Or are you saying you have found a theme, but it doesn't work with Puppy? I think Puppy icon themes might be slightly incompatible with normal ones, but I don't know.
It definitely feels like the LONG way :lol:

I found an 'icon set' which is just a collection of icons, not a pet, but it matches the theme I've been creating. The truth is, I don't really know how to create a .pet. I've been planning on trying to learn, and have read through some directions I found, but it's new territory. I suppose I could get a pet, replace my icons into it, then rename it accordingly... Hadn't really thought of that approach. Most of the pets though seem to be focused on the desktop icons, and my desktop doesn't have any icons. I'm using them in the drop-down menus and in my panels; I have a stationary panel above and below, and two hidden panels for the sides.

K, I shall look into it. Thanks :wink:

Eathray

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