Adding and moving submenus in kmenuedit (kde4)
 

kmenuedit is a cool piece of software, but it has one maddening feature.

When you add a new submenu with nothing selected, it always gets added at the top of the menu. When you subsequently try to move it down, each successive subfolder automatically opens up and it's not possible to keep the new submenu at the same level as the other submenus unless you move it below an item that is not a submenu. This same issue also prevents you from rearranging the subfolders into another order.

1) Anybody know how to deal with this?

2) Is there a way to edit some configuration files directly to get the desired results?

I did some digging and found that the menu itself is stored in $HOME/.config/menus/applications-kmenuedit.menu . I tried editing that file directly with some success, but ran into problems for two reasons. A) The file is part of a larger system working with other files in $HOME/.config/menus/applications-merged and in $HOME/.local/share/desktop-directories and B) re-invoking kmenuedit afterward undoes some of the changes as if the file is being automatically rebuilt from another source.

Information on the menu file itself is at

http://standards.freedesktop.org/men...-spec-1.0.html

3) Is there another program I can use to edit the menu that doesn't have this problem?

4) Is there a replacement menu system I can use?

I am currently using kde 4.3.5 (kubuntu karmic), but this problem goes all the way back to dapper.

As an aside, using kmenuedit gradually makes the menu file very complicated with lots of sections of code marked as deleted and/or renamed. It doesn't just keep the code that works. It can also create directories and files in other places (see B above) that are no longer used.

TIA

Joe

In KDE 4.6 beta1 if you drag and drop the submenu over the leftmost line of the tree (the one with + - expansions) then it will remain in top level, otherwise it will go into lower level

It also seems that if you drop it quickly it is going to remain in top level, if you delay then it will go into lower level

Thanks
 

Thanks. I'll try that in 4.3.5. My touchpad is very flakey so it's very hard to do things quickly.

Joe

Solved
 

That works in kde 4.3.5 too. You just select the submenu you want to move and then keep the mouse cursor at the far left of the panel and don't stop too long anywhere before dropping the submenu where you want it.

I'm still amazed at the mess that gets left in the menu file when you move things around, etc.. It's gross!

Joe