"Star Menu"

[Guest Csd]

Hello everyone,

 

I would like to create different star menu (yes that's it, mandrake's "start menu") profiles, but I can't find how this menu works "behind the scene".

So far the directories that I have found that I think have something to do with what I'm looking for are these :

 

~/.kde/share/pplnk-mdk/

~/.menu/

 

Basically what I want is to know which config files I need to modify in order to change the star menu's content, and how. I want to create different profiles for the star menu i.e. my little sister would only have games and internet, my father would only have the multimedia menu and internet, etc.

 

For all this, I do not want to use Kmenuedit or Menudrake, I really *need* to use the config files and to be able to edit them manually in order to do what i want to do. Please do not ask why, believe me: i *need* to use the config files.

 

Thanks in advance

[sellis]

According to this month's Linux Format, these have changed for 2005LE.

Limited edition's menus have changed quite a bit. They've been generated using the XDG menu from the freedesktop.org standard...

If that's what you're using, it might get you started in the right direction.

[Guest Csd]

actually I'm using mandrake 10, sorry for not saying so in the first place

[adamw]

2005 is a little more complicated than that, in fact; we generate XDG menus from the packages using the Debian menu system, which is a wonderful mix of an immature new system with an ancient hack we used up until 2005 in order to allow cross-WM menu compatibility. The only way you're likely to get any mileage out of changing the MDV menu system is with Menudrake. If you try it any other way it will most likely just not work at all. Once XDG is mature, we can hopefully dump the Debian menu system and just ship plain XDG menus, which will be a standard format any editor can implement, so there will likely be a wealth of menu editing tools.

[Guest Csd]

What if I use only one single WM? Will it still be impossible to create different menu profiles?

 

You can't create menu profiles with MenuDrake, right ? By "menu profiles", I mean for example that someone at login would be asked which profile they would like to use, and then a script would change the menu according to the chosen profile.

[adamw]

there's no provision for doing that, no. I suppose if you switch to the desktop's own menu method - there's an option in menudrake to do this - you might be able to use whatever methods that desktop has for dealing with menus, possibly including that system?

[Guest Csd]

Thank you all for your helpful answers. If somebody knows where I could get more information on this topic, (how menu-generating works, which files it uses, the difference between running the 'update-menus -v' command and clicking "save" in MenuDrake, basically anything concerning the way that menus are generated for different users), please tell me.

Here is what I found on the subject so far :

 

In ~/.menu there are files representing entries in the user's menu. when you delete a menu entry with menudrake, a file that has the entry's name ends up in ~/.menu . It's content begins with a "#". The same files (and more, a great list of these) are also found in /usr/lib/menu .

 

In ~/.kde/share/applnk-mdk/ , there are folders that represent the user's menu-folders (example: Games, Multimedia..). Those contain '.desktop' files which represent entries in the user's menu as well. When you delete an entry in the menu, the words "Hidden=true" appear at the end of the corresponding '.desktop' file. If you manually edit these files to put "Hidden=true" in them, and then reboot, you edit the files again and notice the "Hidden=true" isn't there anymore. Sometimes the whole '.desktop' files even disappear themselves(for no apparent reason?). When you add an entry to the user's menu, a '.desktop' file appears in the right directory inside ~/.kde/share/applnk-mdk .These files seem to come from /usr/share/applnk since in that directory there are the same .desktop files.

 

I dont really understand what's going on with menus, it seems there are several parrallel systems that generate menus: the '~/.menu files' , the '.desktop files' , 'update-menus -v' & 'clicking "save" in menudrake'. I would really like to understand how this menu thing really works on a config-file level.

 

Right now I will try switching to my desktop's own menu method as you suggested adamw. Thanks for the tip.

 

 

EDIT :

I've just switched to "kde's own menu method" by changing the "Menu Style" option in MenuDrake. I have not seen any apparent changes after that.

Concerning what I said earlier : I have just deleted a menu entry with MenuDrake, one single menu entry: "Blender" in the "Graphics" folder. Before I did that, ~/.kde/share/applnk-mdk/Multimedia/Graphics contained all '.desktop' files corresponding to all graphic programs reachable through startmenu/multimedia/graphics. The second i deleted "Blender" with MenuDrake, all the '.desktop' files in "~/.kde/share/applnk-mdk/Multimedia/Graphics" folder disappeared! All of them, while I only deleted one entry ... What should I conclude ?

EDIT 2:

Right after writing that post, I checked again and all the '.desktop' files were back... "Blender.desktop" has the words "Hidden=true" in it's content, as I would have expected, BUT the Blender entry in my menu is still there!

EDIT 3:

I clicked "save" in MenuDrake, and now all .desktop files in ".../applnk-mdk/Multimedia/Graphics" are gone again. Note that, for example, all .desktop files in ".../applnk/Multimedia/Sounds" are still there.

Edited May 27, 2005 by Csd

[Guest Csd]

bump :unsure:

[Guest Csd]

Is there any documentation at all, about how menus are generated/managed on a configfile-level? About which config files do what, and how can we edit them to make them generate the menus according to our taste?