All the menu customizing docs I find via Google are telling me how to modify an existing menu (and it's awfully messy). I do not want to modify an existing menu. Instead, I want to create a whole NEW menu that has nothing but my own stuff in it (e.g. a bunch of lines, with custom text, that when selected will invoke a custom command line). I want it to have its own separate config file. It should have its own way to be brought up separate from any other. An icon on the panel bar (placed where I want it) would be ideal.

Yeah, Xfce menus are a mess. You could use a standalone menu (I personally use mygtkmenu in xmonad) and add a launcher for it.

1 members found this post helpful.

Interesting. I went searching for "mygtkmenu" and found a different one not in Haskell (as Xmonad purports to be). This one appears to be a standalone project in C:

http://sites.google.com/site/jvinla/mygtkmenu

I meant that I use it in xmonad, since the WM does not provide its own. I apologize for not being clear enough.

1 members found this post helpful.

Sorry, I misinterpreted. I finally got it compiled and it brings up menus! \o/
It even works from command line, though the menu won't display until the mouse does some action of any kind.

This looks like it could be a useful GTK+ example program, too. Now to go try it on a test box running Slackware+Xfce. I will want to make improvements, and this being in C and C being my strong language (and wanting to learn GTK+), I'll be recoding this at some point.

Thanks!

1 members found this post helpful.

It may be possible entirely within Xfce.

Xfce (explored with version 4.6.1) supports creating a second menu with a custom menu file instead of the default ~/.config/menus/xfce_applications.menu (and a custom title and icon). In the custom menu file, it may be possible to discard the default directories searched for *.desktop files by omitting <DefaultAppDirs/> and <DefaultDirectoryDirs/> and using <AppDir> and <DirectoryDir> instead but I could not find any documentation/examples on how to use them and did not succeed with brief experimentation.

Do you know if this is only a system-wide capability, or can it be done on a per-user basis? If the former, I would pass on it. If the latter I'll look and see what I can find when I get migrated to Xfce.

It may be possible system-wide by creating another file based on /etc/xfce/xdg/menus/xfce-applications.menu in the same directory.