Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

Sloth · 2013-04-06 06:48:11

I'm using Xubuntu 13.04. Xfce version is 4.10.

I installed two applications

Boot-Repair
Disks aka gnome-disk-utility

These applications are "not" listed in the Xfce menu and "Application Finder" too doesn't recognize these applications.

But when I launch these applications from terminal, it runs fine. Also, when I search for these application using Synapse, it gets listed in it and I'm able to launch those applications using Synapse.

I think the problem is with Xfce rather than Xubuntu because, this problem exists in Xubuntu 12.10 too.

andrzejr · 2013-04-06 12:17:31

Do these applications install a *.desktop file in a /usr/.../share/applications directory?

If not, then they will not be visible in the applications menu or appfinder. I don't know if there is any plan to extend appfinder to support any other data sources (like synapse). Given that this is not a small task - probably not.

You can also create your own .desktop files.

ToZ · 2013-04-06 12:23:34

I don't think this is an Xfce problem.

How did you install these applications? From the Software Centre or built from source?

If you install gnome-disk-utility from the Ubuntu repositories, the icon will display in the Settings Manager in the Hardware section (called "Disks"). Have a look at the associated desktop file: /usr/share/applications/gnome-disks.desktop.

As for Boot Repair, it doesn't appear to be part of the official Ubuntu repositories. It is however, available in this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~yannubuntu/+archive/boot-repair. If you installed from this PPA, the desktop file indicates that the icon would be availble in either the Settings Manager or the System menu.

If you installed it differently, look for the associated desktop files - they will indicate where in the menu the application will show up. If they don't exist, you will need to create them.

EDIT: Oops, beaten to the punch.

Last edited by ToZ (2013-04-06 12:24:39)

VoodooSyxx · 2013-04-07 19:33:35

Go look in the .desktop file for the application in /usr/share/applications. Even if it's there, there are also lines in there for exluding or including the app in certain desktops. This is done so that if you have say KDE and XFCE installed on the same system, you don't get a menu full of mess from applications that don't belong on that desktop.

In /usr/share/applications you can grep for OnlyShowIn and NotShowIn to see what all your applications are set to. To change it, copy the desktop file to ~/.local/share/applictions and edit those lines. It's better to edit them locally so updates don't overwrite your changes.

Sloth · 2013-04-08 10:09:56

First of all I think this should be a Xfce problem(but not sure), because the icons are being listed in Unity and also gnome 2.x. I haven't tried KDE or gnome 3.x.

andrzejr wrote:

Do these applications install a *.desktop file in a /usr/.../share/applications directory?
If not, then they will not be visible in the applications menu or appfinder. I don't know if there is any plan to extend appfinder to support any other data sources (like synapse). Given that this is not a small task - probably not.
You can also create your own .desktop files.

Yes, these applications do install a desktop configuration file in hte /usr/share/applicationd directory.

ToZ wrote:

I don't think this is an Xfce problem.
How did you install these applications? From the Software Centre or built from source?
If you install gnome-disk-utility from the Ubuntu repositories, the icon will display in the Settings Manager in the Hardware section (called "Disks"). Have a look at the associated desktop file: /usr/share/applications/gnome-disks.desktop.
As for Boot Repair, it doesn't appear to be part of the official Ubuntu repositories. It is however, available in this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~yannubuntu/+archive/boot-repair. If you installed from this PPA, the desktop file indicates that the icon would be availble in either the Settings Manager or the System menu.
If you installed it differently, look for the associated desktop files - they will indicate where in the menu the application will show up. If they don't exist, you will need to create them.
EDIT: Oops, beaten to the punch.

I installed "Disks" directly from the Ubuntu software center and installed "Boot-Repair" using PPA.

Yes, the icons are being displayed in the /usr/share/applications directory and *.desktop files do exist for both Disks & Boot-Repair.

VoodooSyxx wrote:

Go look in the .desktop file for the application in /usr/share/applications. Even if it's there, there are also lines in there for exluding or including the app in certain desktops. This is done so that if you have say KDE and XFCE installed on the same system, you don't get a menu full of mess from applications that don't belong on that desktop.
In /usr/share/applications you can grep for OnlyShowIn and NotShowIn to see what all your applications are set to. To change it, copy the desktop file to ~/.local/share/applictions and edit those lines. It's better to edit them locally so updates don't overwrite your changes.

Nope, I don't have 2 desktop environments installed on the same system. I have installed only Xubuntu 13.04 beta and it was a fresh installation.

And regarding the grep, I have no idea how to run it using "OnlyShowIn and NotShowIn". Could you please post the actual command.

Last edited by Sloth (2013-04-08 10:11:01)

ToZ · 2013-04-08 10:44:34

ToZ wrote:

If you install gnome-disk-utility from the Ubuntu repositories,
I installed "Disks" directly from the Ubuntu software center
the icon will display in the Settings Manager in the Hardware section (called "Disks").

Is the icon in the Settings Manager in the Hardware Section?

Sloth · 2013-04-08 10:48:08

ToZ wrote:

ToZ wrote:
If you install gnome-disk-utility from the Ubuntu repositories,
I installed "Disks" directly from the Ubuntu software center
the icon will display in the Settings Manager in the Hardware section (called "Disks").
Is the icon in the Settings Manager in the Hardware Section?

Sorry for not reading your previous post properly.

Yes, the disks icon is being displayed in the Settings Manager.

Also when I search for boot repair, it gets displayed as a text link(without icon) in the "Settings Manager".

VoodooSyxx · 2013-04-08 15:55:21

Sloth wrote:

First of all I think this should be a Xfce problem(but not sure), because the icons are being listed in Unity and also gnome 2.x. I haven't tried KDE or gnome 3.x.

andrzejr wrote:
Do these applications install a *.desktop file in a /usr/.../share/applications directory?
If not, then they will not be visible in the applications menu or appfinder. I don't know if there is any plan to extend appfinder to support any other data sources (like synapse). Given that this is not a small task - probably not.
You can also create your own .desktop files.
Yes, these applications do install a desktop configuration file in hte /usr/share/applicationd directory.

ToZ wrote:
I don't think this is an Xfce problem.
How did you install these applications? From the Software Centre or built from source?
If you install gnome-disk-utility from the Ubuntu repositories, the icon will display in the Settings Manager in the Hardware section (called "Disks"). Have a look at the associated desktop file: /usr/share/applications/gnome-disks.desktop.
As for Boot Repair, it doesn't appear to be part of the official Ubuntu repositories. It is however, available in this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~yannubuntu/+archive/boot-repair. If you installed from this PPA, the desktop file indicates that the icon would be availble in either the Settings Manager or the System menu.
If you installed it differently, look for the associated desktop files - they will indicate where in the menu the application will show up. If they don't exist, you will need to create them.
EDIT: Oops, beaten to the punch.
I installed "Disks" directly from the Ubuntu software center and installed "Boot-Repair" using PPA.
Yes, the icons are being displayed in the /usr/share/applications directory and *.desktop files do exist for both Disks & Boot-Repair.

VoodooSyxx wrote:
Go look in the .desktop file for the application in /usr/share/applications. Even if it's there, there are also lines in there for exluding or including the app in certain desktops. This is done so that if you have say KDE and XFCE installed on the same system, you don't get a menu full of mess from applications that don't belong on that desktop.
In /usr/share/applications you can grep for OnlyShowIn and NotShowIn to see what all your applications are set to. To change it, copy the desktop file to ~/.local/share/applictions and edit those lines. It's better to edit them locally so updates don't overwrite your changes.
Nope, I don't have 2 desktop environments installed on the same system. I have installed only Xubuntu 13.04 beta and it was a fresh installation.
And regarding the grep, I have no idea how to run it using "OnlyShowIn and NotShowIn". Could you please post the actual command.

I didn't say you had 2 desktops installed. It was an explanation for the existence of OnlyShowIn and NotShowIn.

For example.

> grep NotShowIn /usr/share/applications/*.desktop | grep XFCE
/usr/share/applications/lxappearance.desktop:NotShowIn=GNOME;XFCE;

As you can see the program lxappearance, is set not to show up in either Gnome or XFCE. If I edited the file lxappearance.desktop and removed XFCE from that line, it would show up in my menus and in appfinder.

Sloth · 2013-04-08 19:34:00

VoodooSyxx wrote:

I didn't say you had 2 desktops installed. It was an explanation for the existence of OnlyShowIn and NotShowIn.
For example.
> grep NotShowIn /usr/share/applications/*.desktop | grep XFCE
/usr/share/applications/lxappearance.desktop:NotShowIn=GNOME;XFCE;
As you can see the program lxappearance, is set not to show up in either Gnome or XFCE. If I edited the file lxappearance.desktop and removed XFCE from that line, it would show up in my menus and in appfinder.

When I run the following command, it doesn't list any application. So I think that the problem is not with the config in the desktop configuartion files.

grep NotShowIn /usr/share/applications/*.desktop | grep XFCE

When I replace XFCE with KDE, some applications are being listed.

grep NotShowIn /usr/share/applications/*.desktop | grep KDE

/usr/share/applications/alacarte.desktop:NotShowIn=KDE;
/usr/share/applications/language-selector.desktop:NotShowIn=KDE;
/usr/share/applications/nm-applet.desktop:NotShowIn=KDE;
/usr/share/applications/nm-connection-editor.desktop:NotShowIn=KDE;
/usr/share/applications/system-config-printer.desktop:NotShowIn=KDE;GNOME;
/usr/share/applications/xfce4-power-manager-settings.desktop:NotShowIn=GNOME;KDE;Unity;

ToZ · 2013-04-09 00:05:17

Sloth wrote:

Also when I search for boot repair, it gets displayed as a text link(without icon) in the "Settings Manager".

There should be a *.desktop file in /usr/share/applications for boot repair. Post back the contents, or the "Icon=" line to see what it says. You may have to edit that line so that a proper icon shows up.

Sloth · 2013-04-09 01:57:58

@everyone - Thank you for offering your valuable time to help me.

ToZ wrote:

There should be a *.desktop file in /usr/share/applications for boot repair. Post back the contents, or the "Icon=" line to see what it says. You may have to edit that line so that a proper icon shows up.

Here are the codes, I've omitted lines related to language translation.

Boot Repair:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=3.193.8
Type=Application
Name=Boot Repair
GenericName=Repair the boot of the computer
Exec=boot-repair
Keywords=grub;mbr;
Icon=/usr/share/boot-sav/x-boot-repair.png
Terminal=false
Categories=System;Settings;
StartupNotify=true

Disks

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Disks
Comment=Manage Drives and Media
Exec=gnome-disks
Icon=gnome-disks
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
X-GNOME-DocPath=palimpsest/palimpsest.xml
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Utility;HardwareSettings;Settings;HardwareSettings;
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=gnome-disk-utility

markfilipak · 2013-04-09 02:10:21

Sloth wrote:

I installed two applications
Boot-Repair
Disks aka gnome-disk-utility

These applications are "not" listed in the Xfce menu and "Application Finder" too doesn't recognize these applications.

See my post: https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=7979. That will at least get you in the ball park.

ToZ · 2013-04-09 02:33:26

From your boot-repair desktop file:

Icon=/usr/share/boot-sav/x-boot-repair.png

Does this icon file exist? If not, you may want to change that line to point to a valid icon.

Sloth · 2013-04-09 06:24:43

markfilipak wrote:

Sloth wrote:
I installed two applications
Boot-Repair
Disks aka gnome-disk-utility

These applications are "not" listed in the Xfce menu and "Application Finder" too doesn't recognize these applications.
See my post: https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=7979. That will at least get you in the ball park.

Thanks for posting that. But my problem is not with adding a custom menu item. The problem is that some apps are not being listed in the main menu while its being displayed in Ubuntu & Ubuntu-gnome. So I'm trying to figure out if the actual problem is with Xfce or with Xubuntu so that I can notify the appropritate devs.

ToZ wrote:

From your boot-repair desktop file:
Icon=/usr/share/boot-sav/x-boot-repair.png
Does this icon file exist? If not, you may want to change that line to point to a valid icon.

Yes, the icon file do exist.

And these apps are listed properly under the main menus in Ubuntu that use Unity & gnome 2.x desktop environments. I haven't tried Kubuntu though.

Edit : Adding Image

Last edited by Sloth (2013-04-09 06:54:47)

ToZ · 2013-04-09 10:46:37

The problem is that some apps are not being listed in the main menu while its being displayed in Ubuntu & Ubuntu-gnome.

In Xfce, if the category is set to "Settings" it will not display in the main menu, but rather in the Settings Manager app. Furthermore, in Xubuntu, the Settings Manager menu item is not expanded like it used to be, so all you see is the Settings Manager app. This I believe is by design.

Sloth · 2013-04-09 18:16:02

ToZ wrote:

In Xfce, if the category is set to "Settings" it will not display in the main menu, but rather in the Settings Manager app. Furthermore, in Xubuntu, the Settings Manager menu item is not expanded like it used to be, so all you see is the Settings Manager app. This I believe is by design.

PS : Do you know any developers who are active in this forum?

ToZ · 2013-04-09 19:01:31

There are a few - Nick for example.

With respect to the new Settings Manager design and layout, I actually prefer this new style to the old, long run-on menu of old.

KitchM · 2014-09-05 14:27:12

I just ran across a similar situation, and I believe that it is the same.

I am using Fedora 20 with Xfce 4.10.1. I use Yum Extender to install from Fedora repos.

I recently installed kdf (KDiskFree; which I find to be the best at displaying simple disk usage information). I attempted to add it to my second panel, but it could not be found. I made a shortcut for it on the desktop by creating a launcher and then it prompted me to look into the /usr/bin directory where it actually existed. However, there was no proper icon for it.

It runs fine, but it was odd that it could not be placed on the panel list, nor in Whisker Menu.

Assuming that it was a packaging problem, I opened a bug request in bugzilla.redhat. The link is https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1138440.

They have noticed that there appears to be a problem with Xfce looking in one area but not in an other.

Perhaps my experience is significant to you all.

Thanks.

knuxyl · 2016-05-14 11:42:42

I think I found a solution for this. I'm using Wily 15.10 and came across this same problem.

I believe the /usr/share/applications directory is owned by root. I had to sudo thunar to be able to put files in it.

The problem is that when I do this, it changes the owner of the .desktop files to root as well. When that happens, the Whisker menu does not show the shortcuts. I sudo chown me *.desktop and they finally showed up.

It's the same case with the icons for the .desktop files. In /usr/share/icons/ I had to sudo chown me *.png so the icons would show up.

Been messing with this all morning and just figured it out. This is a thread I found trying to figure out the problem so I figured I'd add this information for anyone else having this problem.

KitchM · 2016-05-15 17:40:16

Thank you for the response. Hopefully someone in programming finds a way to fix this so that it does not occur again. However, it may be an OS-specific issue.

Thanks again.

tr64 · 2016-06-06 22:04:58

Sloth wrote:

I'm using Xubuntu 13.04. Xfce version is 4.10.
I installed two applications
Boot-Repair
Disks aka gnome-disk-utility

These applications are "not" listed in the Xfce menu and "Application Finder" too doesn't recognize these applications.
But when I launch these applications from terminal, it runs fine. Also, when I search for these application using Synapse, it gets listed in it and I'm able to launch those applications using Synapse.

I think the problem is with Xfce rather than Xubuntu because, this problem exists in Xubuntu 12.10 too.

go to settings manager .then go to menu editor and on/off hide from menus for different apps categories.It will probably gets fixed

Last edited by tr64 (2016-06-06 22:05:22)

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#1 2013-04-06 06:48:11

Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#2 2013-04-06 12:17:31

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#3 2013-04-06 12:23:34

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#4 2013-04-07 19:33:35

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#5 2013-04-08 10:09:56

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#6 2013-04-08 10:44:34

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#7 2013-04-08 10:48:08

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#8 2013-04-08 15:55:21

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#9 2013-04-08 19:34:00

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#10 2013-04-09 00:05:17

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#11 2013-04-09 01:57:58

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#12 2013-04-09 02:10:21

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#13 2013-04-09 02:33:26

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#14 2013-04-09 06:24:43

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#15 2013-04-09 10:46:37

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#16 2013-04-09 18:16:02

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#17 2013-04-09 19:01:31

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#18 2014-09-05 14:27:12

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#19 2016-05-14 11:42:42

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#20 2016-05-15 17:40:16

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

#21 2016-06-06 22:04:58

Re: Some apps not being listed in menu or "Application Finder"

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