Will there ever be a good and working Gnome menu?

[Mazza558]

I've now tried (as far as I know) all the available gnome menus, and they all seem to fall short in one way. The reason I like having only one menu is because I like to have just one panel (with window list on it). Here's the problems I've had with the ones I've tried:

Normal menu

Unintuitive and requires too many clicks to open things...

Normal menu with one button

Even if you customise it, it's not good if you don't like lots of menus to open things

Gimmie

Very laggy/slow and creates a window in the window list for no reason

SLAB menu (Gnome-main-menu)

I'd use this but I can't customise the filemanager which opens when you click on folders, and I don't use recent documents and can't hide it.

Mint Menu

I'd also use this but it crashes the gnome settings daemon on restart.

I'd be grateful if anyone knew how to resolve some of these problems...

[Mazza558]

Aha, I've found out that's a new (and customisable) version of the gnome-main-menu, and apparently the one in the repos is ages old. I've found the svn of it, I think, and need to know how to get this installed (svn noob):

http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gnome-main-menu/trunk/

[M7S]

What about USP (Ubuntu System Panel), the menu that Mint Menu is based upon? It works great for me.

[Mazza558]

What about USP (Ubuntu System Panel), the menu that Mint Menu is based upon? It works great for me.

It looks horrible in my opinion...

[LeoSolaris]

Did you know that you can customize the way things are organized in the menu by going to Menu->System->Preferences->Main Menu

You can even pull all of the apps out of the folders and put them all into a few mega folders. I have not figured out how to remove all the sub-menus and have just the apps sitting out in a line. I am not too sure I would personally want to do that, but I was testing to see if it was easy to do to let you know about it.

[CaptainCabinet]

Did you know that you can customize the way things are organized in the menu by going to Menu->System->Preferences->Main Menu

You can even pull all of the apps out of the folders and put them all into a few mega folders. I have not figured out how to remove all the sub-menus and have just the apps sitting out in a line. I am not too sure I would personally want to do that, but I was testing to see if it was easy to do to let you know about it.

Yeah just do that. Though I haven't actually done that myself because I think Gnome is perfect as it is. :)

[Mazza558]

Did you know that you can customize the way things are organized in the menu by going to Menu->System->Preferences->Main Menu

You can even pull all of the apps out of the folders and put them all into a few mega folders. I have not figured out how to remove all the sub-menus and have just the apps sitting out in a line. I am not too sure I would personally want to do that, but I was testing to see if it was easy to do to let you know about it.

I did that for a while, but it was stressing me out. All I really want is gnome-main-window to be customisable, then I'd be able to use it. I'm actually getting extremely frustrated now, as there's supposed to be a better version of the main menu but I can't even compile it - it requires packages which aren't even in Ubuntu's repos. :(

[FuturePilot]

What packages does it need? They have to be in the repos.

[Mazza558]

What packages does it need? They have to be in the repos.

It needs "libgnome-menu" (NOT libgnome-menu2) and "eel-2.0".

It doesn't matter though, I've given up on gnome-main-menu.

It is frustrating that there's nothing out there for me. The Mint menu doesn't open if your cursor is right in the corner of the screen (it's just a button), and part of the menu is hidden underneath my panel (32px).

[M7S]

It looks horrible in my opinion...
If you like the looks of Mint Menu, you could probably customize USP to your liking as well. I agree with you on that out of the box USP isn't very good looking.

[banjobacon]

Normal menu

Unintuitive and requires too many clicks to open things...


I don't understand how the normal menu is unintuitive. Is two clicks really too many?

[SunnyRabbiera]

I never had an issue with the menu bar or the regular main menu.
I dont like Slab though, I think it is junk.
Mint menu is fair, but it shares long standing bugs with the old USP.
USP2 is alright but it seems lacking.
Id say I am keeping my eyes on the Mint menu, apparently they are just going to recode the whole rotten thing next time

[travismh]

It's SLAB Menu not 'SLED.' SLED is the acronym for 'SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop' that uses the SLAB menu (to perfection IMHO).

[Mazza558]

It's SLAB Menu not 'SLED.' SLED is the acronym for 'SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop' that uses the SLAB menu (to perfection IMHO).

Either way, "SLED menu" could be interpreted as shorthand for "the menu that SLED uses". I'll change it anyway.

For now, I've gone back to the ever-popular normal menu and AWN at the bottom.

[billgoldberg]

I've now tried (as far as I know) all the available gnome menus, and they all seem to fall short in one way. The reason I like having only one menu is because I like to have just one panel (with window list on it). Here's the problems I've had with the ones I've tried:

Normal menu

Unintuitive and requires too many clicks to open things...

Normal menu with one button

Even if you customise it, it's not good if you don't like lots of menus to open things

Gimmie

Very laggy/slow and creates a window in the window list for no reason

SLAB menu (Gnome-main-menu)

I'd use this but I can't customise the filemanager which opens when you click on folders, and I don't use recent documents and can't hide it.

Mint Menu

I'd also use this but it crashes the gnome settings daemon on restart.

I'd be grateful if anyone knew how to resolve some of these problems...

I find the standard gnome menu the best menu i've ever used. (compared to the kde 3 and 4, vista, xp and linux mint menu).

Unlike most menu's I find the gnome menu easy to figure out, it makes sense (applications have the programs, places have the folders and system lets you tweak the system),

I actually find it very fast to find your stuff. And the commonly used programs like firefox for example get a place on the panel.

The mint menu is pretty good, but a bit to windows like, as are the 2 kde menus.

Gimmie just sucks big time (it crashed 2 time in the 5 minutes I used it).

[madjr]

If you like the looks of Mint Menu, you could probably customize USP to your liking as well. I agree with you on that out of the box USP isn't very good looking.

USP ugly?

http://linuxmint.com/forum/download/file.php?id=82


look it here
http://linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=54042#p54042

[days_of_ruin]

I like the default gnome menu.
It's a lot faster to divide everything into three categories
then to have one like in a certain os which shall remain unnamed.

:guitar:

[vexorian]

I like the normal gnome menu. (BTW Familiar != intuitive), if you are worried about the number of clicks, do what I do, I just have a bunch of launchers in my top bar, for the apps I use the most.

[DeadSuperHero]

I love the Gnome menu bar. Love, love, love it.
Although, I also like the Global Menu bar, but hate it due to the fact that Gnome Menu bar and Global Menu bar aren't fused together into one applet....oh well...