Menu editing in Xfce

[DevilInPgh]

How do I edit the menu in Xfce so I can put apps in the folders that I want them in? I saw that I can add programs to the menu via the GNOME menu editor, but this places apps in the "Other" folder. And when I use the Xfce menu editor, it just has a space that represents the whole system, which I can't edit.

[easy_target]

I wanna do the same thing. Anyone out there can help us?

[aysiu]

Edit the menu the way you want and then save it as /home/username/.custommenu.xml

In XFCE menu properties, select use custom menu file and then navigate to your custom menu.

[ardchoille]

Originally Posted by aysiu Edit the menu the way you want and then save it as /home/username/.custommenu.xml In XFCE menu properties, select use custom menu file and then navigate to your custom menu.

The problem is you can't edit most of the xfce4 menu with the menu editor. Even many of the xfce community agree that the menu editor is almost useless.

I have, however, found a way to change things in the system menu. Create new .desktop files in ~/.local/share/applications and those new meu items will show up in the xfce4 menu immediately.. at least they did for me.

[ezphilosophy]

Originally Posted by aysiu Edit the menu the way you want and then save it as /home/username/.custommenu.xml In XFCE menu properties, select use custom menu file and then navigate to your custom menu.

Aysiu,

How do you edit the menu in the way of accessories, games, utilites, etc.? I just installed xfce from Kubuntu and I have loads of applications that I really don't want in the menu. For some reason, with the install, xfce decided to put a bunch of screensavers in the "system" menu.

You mentioned editing a menu, that just seems to be for the other menu components e.g., settings, terminal, run program, etc.

Any ideas? Anyone?

[lionel47]

The screensavers in the system menu is a great annoyance to me, too. I hope someone finds the answer.

[DirtDawg]

All the menu files can be found in /usr/share/applications in the form of ".desktop" files. The easiest thing to do is edit those (make a backup first). For example, Cream was under applications, but I wanted it in Development.

Here is the original "/usr/share/applications/cream.desktop" file:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Cream
Comment=Edit text files
Comment[de]=Textdateien editieren
TryExec=cream
Exec=cream %F
MimeType=text/plain
Categories=Application;Utility;TextEditor;
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/cream.xpm

I changed the "Categories" line to include "Development" rather than "Applications", so now it shows up in the "Development" catergory:

Categories=Development;Utility;TextEditor;

To remove something from the menu, add the following line to a ".desktop" file at the bottom:

NoDisplay=true

I found this trick and a few others here.

Hope this helps

[SneakyWho_am_i]

Interesting. Aysiu's screenshot shows two Windows. I have the first, and the second, but the second has much different content in my version of XFCE. I'm not taking a screenshot but basically the only "editable" item in that is the link to the settings thing. It's also the only collapsible category.

I'm not complaining, I can edit it by hand and I'm using Hardy proposed updates and backports and such - it's just curious that everything after the second divider is just represented by
"--- include --- system"
ESP tells me it's an "External" entry.

Originally Posted by aysiu Edit the menu the way you want and then save it as /home/username/.custommenu.xml In XFCE menu properties, select use custom menu file and then navigate to your custom menu.

[jonathantneal]

If you want to edit the main menu, you have to load the default .xml

If you want to edit 99% of that menu; the part that exists above the first seperator and beneath the second (settings, accessories, games, graphics, multimedia, network, office, other, system - you know, just those...) then I haven't a clue, and I hope we find out soon!

EDIT: someone else posted the solution while I was writing my comment. UNDO, CTRL+Z, BACKSPACE, CTRL+ALT+DELETE MYPOST.

[mixmaster]

Ugh, this system is truely dire.

I've recently tried to move to xfce. Generally I like it, but the menu system stinks. I managed to hide the system menu with the menu editor then couldn't get it back until I found out what the menu editor app was called so I could edit it from the desktop. Then I managed to make the entire applications menu disappear playing with custom menu files and had to re-establish it using add-panel.

Anyway, one tip.

If you add the line
<include type="file" src="menu2.xml"/>
to your ~/config/xfce4/desktop/menu.xml file then the contents of menu2.xml will be embedded in your menu. I copied the original menu.xml to menu2.xml and started by editing that. However, if you change menu2.xml the changes will not be reflected in the application menu unless you also update menu.xml (touch is sufficient).

Oh, yes, get used to editing the .xml files by hand if you use the default location because as far as I can see there is no way to persuade the "open file" option in the menu editor to traverse into a directory whose name begins in a "."

I've just noticed that the menu editor has disappeared from the autogenerated menu tree for reasons that I cannot fathom.