updating menus screwed up?

Levitate · 12-25-2004, 12:23 PM

I'm running sarge, and I used KDE for awhile and then removed it to give WindowMaker a shot...but the menus in WindowMaker won't update automatically and to get them to update, i have to log out of X completely and do update-menus from the command line, and then get back into WindowMaker

i found something that said KDE can mess up the menu updating, and instead of looking for a global menu update, it's now looking at the individual user ones, which is why i have to do it manually now. but it didn't say anything about how to fix that...

sooo...is there a way i can fiddle with this and get it back to "normal"? i'm sorry if my description of the issue isn't too clear

i was also wondering if there's an easy way to manually edit the menus...when i go to do it in the WindowMaker config program, it says something like "The menu version you are using is not compatible with this program, would you like to revert to the old version?" (not an exact quote, similar though) and i can't edit the menus.

i found a menu.hook file somewhere (can't remember off hand right now) but it says not to edit it directly because it's automatically generated, etc.

i guess i'm just trying to get it so when i install a new program, i don't have to fight with it to get it to show on the menus, and i want to be able to arrange the stuff on the menus the way i like.

i appreciate it if someone can help

Dead Parrot · 12-25-2004, 02:08 PM

We seem to have different settings because my Window Maker application menu is updated automatically every time I install/remove apps. I cannot say why it doesn't work for you because I've never had any problems with my menu. I've got the "menu" and "menu-xdg" packages installed, if that makes any difference. You can do "dpkg -l | grep menu" to see if you've got these too.

It is possible to modify some aspects of the right-click menu in Window Maker while still keeping the auto-update feature. At least you can decide where individual programs should appear in the menu by copying the appropriate menu files from /usr/lib/menu/ to /etc/menu/ and editing them there. If you install non-debian apps, you can make menu entries for them in /etc/menu/. However, the changes in /etc/menu/ require running "update-menus" and restarting Window Maker before they show in menu.

You can use the same method to associate keyboard shortcuts to certain menu entries. For example, I've got a file /etc/menu/aterm that reads:

Code:

?package(aterm):needs="X11" section="XShells"\
  title="Aterm" command="/usr/bin/aterm"\
  shortcut=Shift+F1

I can open aterm by pressing the Shift and F1 keys at the same time. It's also possible to move aterm to another menu directory by editing the section entry.

Window Maker appears to be the only window manager where the files in /etc/menu/ actually have any effect on menus, so you're lucky in asking specifically about Window Maker menus.

Levitate · 12-25-2004, 03:52 PM

Quote:

We seem to have different settings because my Window Maker application menu is updated automatically every time I install/remove apps. I cannot say why it doesn't work for you because I've never had any problems with my menu. I've got the "menu" and "menu-xdg" packages installed, if that makes any difference. You can do "dpkg -l | grep menu" to see if you've got these too.

yeah i think something got changed that is supposed to do the automatic updating...like i said, i think i read that KDE can mess up the menu updating if you uninstall it, something like that

dunno, i'll check into the menu and menu-xdg packages, thanks

Levitate · 12-30-2004, 01:11 PM

ok i'm gonna resurrect this for a bit...

i noticed when i open up windowmaker as root, that it is doing the auto menu updates

as my normal user, it doesn't

so it'd seem that somewhere in the config for the user, it's not looking in the right place. but in the config for the root, it is.

anyone have ideas what is telling it where to look so i can maybe edit it to look in the right place?

Dead Parrot · 12-31-2004, 04:46 AM

Check the files you can find from ~/GNUstep/Defaults/ . I've got a file ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMRootMenu that reads:

Code:

"menu.hook"

I think this has some connection with the Debian menu system via the files in /etc/X11/WindowMaker/ but I also think you're only supposed to edit the files in your own home directory.

Levitate · 12-31-2004, 03:08 PM

as i recall (i'm not on my debian machine at the moment) that's what it says for me too...but it's like it's looking at a different menu.hook file

annoying but not horrible i guess, i can always just run update-menus

but i have to add a entry for mplayer here sometime...

macondo · 12-31-2004, 03:52 PM

I don't know if this might help, but in icewm, i do as user:

update-menus

and that's it.

Dead Parrot · 12-31-2004, 03:54 PM

The command "find / -name menu.hook" outputs /etc/X11/WindowMaker/menu.hook so that's probably the file that defines all users' menus in Window Maker. The menu.hook file tells to take a look at /usr/share/doc/menu/menu.txt.gz. This file has lots of useful info and it tells to attack /etc/menu-methods/wmaker if you want to make changes to menus.

As I said, in my Window Maker menu automatic updating works fine but maybe you can solve your problem by studying these files.

EDIT (2005.06.09):

For the future reference -- running "update-menus" as normal user creates a file ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/menu.hook and this may stop Window Maker from automatically updating the root menu. Removing ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/menu.hook will restore automatic menu updating.