cinnamon-menu-editor work

[RavetcoFX]

The cinnamon-menu-editor needs some work, its leggy and you don't have much control over what you edit like dragging launchers to other sections and choosing where its running directory is, I propose forking MenuLibre and using that instead.

[LunaticoCR]

Plus some issues like this: #1557

[pdcurtis]

This addresses most of the points I made in #205 (Wine Apps in "Others") about the need for a better menu editor.

I have installed the latest MenuLibre from its PPA within Cinnamon 1.6 over Ubuntu 12.04, it looks very promising and I fully support it being integrating into Cinnamon.

Interestingly MenuLibre seems to have the potential to handle Wine Programs better than the existing menu as they are not all showing up in the 'Other' category within MenuLibre.

[LunaticoCR]

Just a note on Wine Apps. I use CrossOver (which is Wine underneath) and that add the applications just fine to the menu. So I'm not sure what the CrossOver people have done different...

[pdcurtis]

I have looked further at MenuLibre and I am less convinced that it can easily be used for replacing the existing menu editor because cinnamon-menu-editor and the existing menus follow the XDG (freedesktop.org) specifications for desktop entries and menus fairly closely. This uses XML files with extension .menu to specify the location of the entries and layout of menus. Entries which are hidden are within elements and there are constructs for moving entries. More details can be found at http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-spec-1.0.html and the most important cinnamon menu can be found at /etc/xdg/menus/cinnamon-applications.menu

In contrast MenuLibre seems to have chosen an approach which is somewhat different and makes its changes within the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications and ~/.local/share/applications. Elements are hidden in the menus by use of NoDisplay=true in the .desktop file and MenuLibre moves menu items within the pre-set categories using Categories= statements.

Currently MenuLibre can not see or modify elements which have been hidden in existing .menu files.

MenuLibre would need a number of enhancements to follow the XDG approach used by Gnome, Ubuntu and Mint for menus. Its approach seems very appropriate for lightweight desktops such as LXDE, XFCE and Lubuntu.

I have been wondering if an alternative way ahead, which I believe would be very good from the users point of view, is to introduce an editing mode within the main menu - that would be consistent with the panel edit mode. We are already part way there with the very useful right click menu allowing one to set favourites and add launchers to the panel and desktop. One could add a hide function which would always be present. In menu edit mode one could display all the launchers with hidden ones greyed out so one could un-hide them and give a link to a Window to allow the categories to be set and the .desktop file edited (and even deleted) rather like MenuLibre. It could also give access to the hidden applications if one needed them on a one off basis.

What do other people think?

[mtwebster]

I tried MenuLibre, and didn't like it at all - poor interface, and too complicated for most users who just want to make a few tweaks to their menu. I think we just need to give the existing menu editor a bit more functionality, it's a good start already.

[RavetcoFX]

WE could fork it and tweak it to what cinnamon/MATE needs

On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 6:24 PM, Michael Webster [email protected]:

I tried MenuLibre, and didn't like it at all - poor interface, and too
complicated for most users who just want to make a few tweaks to their
menu. I think we just need to give the existing menu editor a bit more
functionality, it's a good start already.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/1563#issuecomment-11938280.

[pdcurtis]

If one continues with the existing cinnamon menu editor as @mtwebster suggests it has several bugs that ideally need to be fixed in 1.6 rather than wait for 1.8:

1. Move Up and Move Down do not work and throw an Ubuntu Internal Error for a cinnamon-menu-editor crash with ValueError in positionItem():GMenuTreeDirectory.
2. New Separator seems to do nothing.
3. It does not show or allow one to edit Preferences and Administration
4. Drag and Drop does not work to change the order of Items or change a Category.
5. New Menu allows one to create multi-level Menus whilst the Cinnamon Menu effectively only allows two levels so New Menu should be restricted to creating new Categories or removed.

Should I raise a separate bug report for these or is raising them in this issue sufficient?

I agree the Properties Window needs more functionality and I would like to see an edit function for the .desktop file added. I do not have so many problems with the interface for the Properties Window being similar to the lowest level of MenuLibre one but see little reason to change the rest which is presumably a fork of alacarte and is reasonably close to the cinnamon 'house style'.

I still think the addition of Hide to the Main Menu right click menu would be very useful to a user who just want to make a few tweaks to their menu to reduce the number of items they will never use.

[glebihan]

I definitely agree on the fact that MenuLibre is not the way to go. It's way too complicated, provides a lot of useless features and doesn't conform to standards.
The editor we have now fulfills most of the needs and would mostly require some polish, by fixing the remaining bugs and improving the UI.

@pdcurtis : I don't think there's a need to open a new issue, we can discuss this here.

[mtwebster]

fyi,

Items 1, 2, and 3 are fixed by https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/pull/1393.

Really all we need to work on are 4 and 5

[pdcurtis]

Sorry, I had missed #1393 and 1, 2 and 3 are now fixed in nightly 1.6.7-201301084016-precise for Categories. 4 is of minor importance now one can use the buttons to re-order Categories. I have put a couple more minor comments in #1393.

This leaves sorting multi-level menus (bug) and extra functionality (enhancement) and it looks as if @mtwebster is on top of the bugs!

[mtwebster]

Closing this for now - some substantial improvements were made to the editor (no drag and drop yet but you can cut and paste now) as well as fixes for apps showing up in the Other category.

Any new problems, open a new issue

[tp0]

Are there any plans to work more on the editor?

I recently tried to do some reorganizing of the menus, but I just gave up. The slowness (the constant reloading of the menu files and repopulation of the lists), the aged and nonsensical UI and the bugs:

• drag and dropping, as known and mentioned many times
• cut & pasting an entry does not actually cut (remove) the original one, instead after pasting it in the new location it reappears (duplicates) in the original location
  
  
  
  • then if you delete it from the new location (or from the original location), it gets deleted from the original location too (or from the new location)
  
  
  • entry still shows up just once in the menu search
  
  
  • except when it sometimes somehow duplicates twice in the original location (!?)
  
  
  • this seems to concern only the existing entries, not custom ones
  
  
• everytime the category view refreshes/updates/repopulates, the scrollbar position is reset
• can't select multiple entries

Overall, it is just appalling to use and pretty much only good for creating new entries once in a while. I think some of these bugs may have been already in the ancient original alacarte.

[Translator5]

2016 ... Still do not work properly :( ...

Is there any command to restore deleted Menu-Items?

[ineuw]

Of all the frustrating experiences in using Linux is the lack of a decent menu manager. This being the foundation of a user's comfort in finding an app and using the OS, Linux is unbelievable deficient in such a key area. As the previous poster mentioned, this is 2016.

I am using Xubuntu with Menulibre, which is one of the sadder efforts of the Linux world. I believe that the developer, Sean Davis is 'dancing at too many weddings', and thus ignores users' complaints about the deficiencies of his MenuLibre concept and execution. Thus, this and all the other deficiencies make Linux not yet ready for prime time use.

[RavetcoFX]

Linux isnt ready because it doesn't have a perfect menu editor??!! You are
aware Windows & OSX doesn't have real ways of organizing their application
menus right? If it's such an issue to you, learn how to fix it.

On Sun, Nov 6, 2016, 1:01 PM i neuw [email protected] wrote:

Of all the frustrating experiences in using Linux is the lack of a decent
menu manager. This being the foundation of a user's comfort in finding an
app and using the OS, Linux is unbelievable deficient in such a key area.
As the previous poster mentioned, this is 2016.

I am using Xubuntu with Menulibre, which is one of the sadder efforts of
the Linux world. I believe that the developer, Sean Davis is 'dancing at
too many weddings', and thus ignores users' complaints about the
deficiencies of his MenuLibre concept and execution. Thus, this and all the
other deficiencies make Linux not yet ready for prime time use.

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[ineuw]

RavetcoFX, Since I suspect that you are still a child, I let you reconsider your reply, take a few moments and read what you wrote.

[mainmachine]

@ineuw - You're just trolling at this point. This is github, not a message board. Let's either talk about the code and how to improve it, or just stop the pedantic banter and name calling.

To address your point, if you don't like Cinnamon's menu editor, you can use Unity, Gnome, KDE, etc. - so it's unreasonable to judge Linux "not yet ready for prime time use" by the state of just one DE of dozens that one could easily use. And if you like Cinnamon, then contribute bug reports, code or meaningful discussion, or please don't bother. Also, "prime time" refers to television, in which Linux is appearing on a regular basis (see Mr Robot, not to mention the dozens of other, less niche genre TV shows where the occasional Gnome or Unity desktop just shows up every once in a while).

[bernd-wechner]

Just a bump. I surfed in here because I wanted to move menu items around. Sort of expecting to find some way to do that in the menu editor. But there ya go, a year later and nothing doing it seems. So seems this could use some attention I guess.