Woof CE: changes to JWM in sfs file not taking effect

[belham2]

Hi all,

I am having a hard time understanding something about jwm.

There is no savefile, this built woof-CE pup.

JWM is the window manager.

I have used SFS-Edit to open the main puppy.sfs.

Inside, I edited the following:

1. In "/etc/xdg/templates/_root_.jwmrc", I edited this to make jwm aware there is a new menu item called "SFS-and-PETS", that will be between "Setup" and 'Utility" in the main menu when you click on it.

2. In "/etc/xdg/menus/" I created the SFS-and-PETS.menu, and put all the appropriate entries for a new menu (using the format of the standard, existing menu entries already there for Puppy)

3. In "/usr/share/desktop-directories/", I labelled the menu item above by creating a SFS-and-Pets-menu.desktop.

4. In "usr/share/applications", I made sure the specific .desktop items I want in my new main menu category all have the correct deisgnation of 'X-SFS-and-PETS' (this was set in the "hierarchy' file in /etc/xdg/templates'.

5. I also edit the .jwmrc and .jwmrc-bak in /root to reflect the above changes

6. I also edited the _root_.jwmrc to structure this new MENU entry, following the format of the others already listed there.


So I put all the above in the main.puppy.sfs I am editing, and then I resquash the sfs and it is ready to go. I drop this resquashed sfs in the frugal folder (with the vmlinuz & initrd.gz), and bootup, and it is like Puppy (these are dpup-stretch builds I am building and working on---but what I am asking applies across all woof-CE built pups). So, even witht the above changes, it is like Puppy doesn't even see the changes I made.

What else am I not editing in the main.sfs to make this work?? Or is it not possible to edit jwm (when no existing savefile has been made yet), and puppy/jwm is going to force boot some menu that is hard-coded into it somewhere???


Thanks for any help with this


P.S. What confuses me is all the above changes work if they are put in a "savefile". But you try to incorporate these changes into the main.sfs by editing the sfs, and then remove the "savefile", Puppy just ignores the changes and reverts back to the standard menu it loads for all woof-CE built pups

[nic007]

I'll just give a general answer for puppys because I'm not familiar with personalized woof-ce build. If you are able to save the changes to a savefile, easiest will be to do a reboot with the savefile and create a new base sfs by first copying the contents of the base sfs (/initrd/pup_ro2/* in standard puppys) and then copying the contents of the savefile (/initrd/pup_rw/* in standard puppys). Use the cp -a command. Place the newly created sfs with the other puppy files and reboot without the savefile. See http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=109918 for my basic remaster script.

[belham2]

I'll just give a general answer for puppys because I'm not familiar with personalized woof-ce build. If you are able to save the changes to a savefile, easiest will be to do a reboot with the savefile and create a new base sfs by first copying the contents of the base sfs (/initrd/pup_ro2/* in standard puppys) and then copying the contents of the savefile (/initrd/pup_rw/* in standard puppys). Use the cp -a command. Place the newly created sfs with the other puppy files and reboot without the savefile. See http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=109918 for my basic remaster script.

Hi Nic007,

That's what I did, as stated above. Why, or more importantly, do you know where JWN and/or Puppy would be hiding some jwmrc settings that could be causing this (other than what I stated in the 1st msg)??? I took the copy of the base sfs (ro2), copied in the contents of the (rw), resquashfs-root-ed the sfs.....and puppy just ignores it, and when booting the sfs, jut rewrites over ONLY everything that is associated with the jwm-main menu. All other changes, completely throughout the pups, are accepted and saved. Remember, this is main-menu specific (the categories)---all other parts of jwm accept changes put into the newly resquashed sfs. So where the heck else, do you think, is something hiding that would be doing this?? This is totally gobsmacking me...lol...and I just tested it on other pups (tahr, slacko and lupu) and the same thing is happening. So where is this jwm crap hard-coded in to puppy's base files that it would override the main-menu-category settings I slightly change (adding a new cateogry and accounting for it)??

[nic007]

Other than having to run the command fixmenus when changing stuff like menus, etc. and restarting JWM after that to save changes, I've got nothing else to add. It's not normal behaviour you are describing, could be something to do with your woof-ce build?

[belham2]

Other than having to run the command fixmenus when changing stuff like menus, etc. and restarting JWM after that to save changes, I've got nothing else to add. It's not normal behaviour you are describing, could be something to do with your woof-ce build?

I am hoping so, that it is dpup-stretch-woof-CE caused only. the problem with that, in running tests here, the tahrs, slackos, etc repeated this. you cannot touch that darn main MENU categories of "DESKTOP", "SYSTEM", "SETUP", "UTILITY", "FILESYSTEM", "GRAPHIC", "DOCUMENT", "BUSINESS", "PERSONAL", "NETWORK", "INTERNET", "MULTIMEDIA", "FUN", "HELP" and "EXIT". You cannot even delete one of them, removing its entry from /etc/kdg/templates/_root_.jwmrc, /etc/xdg/menus, /usr/share/desktop-directories and anything in /root/.jwmrc & its backups plus folders of /root/.jwm and /etc/jwm----the only places I know of that jwm files exist in a main.sfs & in the pups overall---puppy will just ignore it after you delete it and completely remove it out of the main.sfs (remember, there's never any savefile here) when it reboots, putting back in the standard whatever.

I've read thru the fixmenu script, and I still cannot see even if it rebuilds (it has to use the stuff I modified as variables) how it can be doing this, or anything else I do. It's like the main-menu alone is hard-coded into all pups, and you cannot ever touch it because it is the tablet of Gawd


Will keep trying here, but am running out of ideas.....

[mfb]

Above, amongst his other inaccuracies, belham2 wrote:

So where is this jwm crap...

Also today, in another place, he wrote:

Also, quit b!tching Evil or Very Mad over something that is free...

If you, belham2, would like to provide me with a secure free-of-charge place to upload the jwm updated main "puppy_stretch_7.0.0a1.sfs", as shown in the screen shot, you may have it. Should there be any charge, set it off against your refund from JoeWing.

I may not PM you again (politely or otherwise), but, as I have a few times before, I'll PM JoeWing (or nic007) if I need sound advice.

Finally, perhaps you will tell us how much you paid for jwm (and its well-studied technical manual) and what exactly you want included within your new PET/SFS jwm menu category.

[MochiMoppel]

@belham2 Without knowing what exactly you did it's difficult to guess what went wrong. From what I see you already touched too many files you'd better not touch.
This may be much simpler. Even simpler: /etc/xdg/templates/_root_.jwmrc may be the only file you need to edit.

BTW: This is not a JWM issue. All JWM needs and reads is /root/.jwmrc. How this file is created and populated with content is the sole responsibility of Puppy's menu creation process, It's not a very intuitive and elegant process, but that's a different matter.