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#1 2012-03-18 10:37:04

daniel227
Member
Registered: 2012-03-14
Posts: 34

Default Application Menu - Alternatives, Advanced Configuration?

Hello,
I'm rather unhappy with the default App menu in xubuntu 11.10.
I tried to install 3 alternatives: mintmenu, GnoMenu and cardapio but none worked - it seems they all depend on gnome-desktop components which i am not willing to install.

are there any alternatives to the default menu?
is it possible to configure it further than what is offered in the properties gui?
i'm particularly interested in speeding it up. i think loading it into ram would be good.

any suggestions?

asks a semi-nerd-noob.

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#2 2012-03-18 14:37:35

rayandrews
Member
From: Vancouver B.C. Canada
Registered: 2011-12-30
Posts: 177

Re: Default Application Menu - Alternatives, Advanced Configuration?

daniel,

I'm new to this myself,  but IIRC although you can't change the default menu, you can create a new one and do anything at all with it.  I've made some changes to the default menu 'illegaly' by editing it's source file, but that's tricky and dangerous.  Google this, I did, and there's info on the subject out there.

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#3 2012-03-18 21:10:26

daniel227
Member
Registered: 2012-03-14
Posts: 34

Re: Default Application Menu - Alternatives, Advanced Configuration?

i realise i wasn't too specific in what i wrote...
editing the menu items is one thing, but i was thinking of a different engine. other menus offer advanced settings like adjusting popup delay, which search program to start when you press search... places menu integrated... also i remember there was almost no delay when you press the button so...
anyway all this was on ubuntugnome or linuxmint.
xfce is great otherwise, but the menu is plain. very.
and since there's no more xfapplet in xubuntu 11.10, i can't use plugins for the gnome panel anymore. i don't understand this really, is this politics or is this about actual programing?

edit: what exactly do you mean with "anything at all"?

Last edited by daniel227 (2012-03-19 18:03:38)

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#4 2012-03-24 10:22:27

daniel227
Member
Registered: 2012-03-14
Posts: 34

Re: Default Application Menu - Alternatives, Advanced Configuration?

i installed classicmenu-indicator
- it shows up in the notification area, which i don't like so much - and i can't change the icon - but it's snappy fast and stable so far. it takes 4-5 MB of RAM and just sits there, waiting for me to click it.

now THAT i would like to achieve with my xfce-appmenu and i just don't understand why that's not possible...
:-(
...



PS: if anyone wants to do the same in xubuntu (or possibly any other not-gnome-setup), there's a little nag:
some apps don't show up in classicmenu-indicator because they have a line in the .desktop file that says: OnlyShowIn=...
you can comment that line out for all .desktop files (usually in /usr/share/applications)
with this 1-liner:

find . -type f -name "*desktop" | xargs perl -pi -e 's/OnlyShowIn+/# OnlyShowIn/g';

and i recommend to make a backup of the whole applications folder before doing that!

PPS: i would like to report this as a bug/feature request but i just found a post on this forum
http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=5060
telling me in CAPITAL LETTERS
that NONE of the devs are reading this and file a bugreport somewhere else.
where i'd have to open an account to do that. which i don't want to do now.
so if you have an account there, feel free to forward this.

Last edited by daniel227 (2012-03-24 10:34:14)

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#5 2012-06-30 11:17:26

secipolla
Member
Registered: 2012-01-15
Posts: 393

Re: Default Application Menu - Alternatives, Advanced Configuration?

Linux Mint's Xfce spin will probably include its mintmenu which is made for MATE (ex-GNOME2).
It can be added via their xfapplet plug-in.
So there are Debian packages from the Mint repository. For other distros, as long as MATE is available, one just have to build the plug-in and maybe mintmenu.

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#6 2012-07-01 12:08:23

andrzejr
Member
Registered: 2012-04-06
Posts: 48

Re: Default Application Menu - Alternatives, Advanced Configuration?

daniel227:
You can add several "Indicator Plugins" to your panel and blacklist indicators you don't need in each of them. This is still clunky and WIP but you should be able to position classicmenu-indicator independently from others. You will likely never be able to change the icon because indicators are very limited by design (ask Canonical).

About feature requests: you can request a feature anywhere you like. It's just that requests on bugzilla are treated more seriously (they are all managed in one place, have a better description than "this", and were all filed by people who cared enough to set up an account). Still there are hundreds if not thousands of requests waiting for their turn and only a few developers, so if you don't push hard, perhaps even implement it yourself, there are little chances to get the feature in Xfce.

As for the xfapplet plugin - AFAIK it still works fine but requires Gtk2 gnome panel applets. You may have some luck with Mate's applets - haven't tried that. Gnome3 applets won't work because they use Gtk3.

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#7 2012-09-01 11:40:28

daniel227
Member
Registered: 2012-03-14
Posts: 34

Re: Default Application Menu - Alternatives, Advanced Configuration?

thanks secipolla and andrzejr!

i tried getting xfapplet via linux mint and mate, but it has so many dependencies (basically installing the whole mate desktop?) that i didn't want to do it :-(

@andrzeir: i can add several indicator plugins, but how can i blacklist indicators?

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