Loading programs from Synaptic

[Ray Parrish]

Ronny Julian wrote:
> I've tried installing several Amateur radio programs with the Package 
> manager.  Should they be showing up in the Amateur radio section of the 
> Applications menu or am I missing something.
>
> Thanks for the help!
> Ronny K4RJJ
>   
Hello,

Yes, I have discovered that Ubuntu's menu management software doesnt 
always add new menu items to your menus if you don't have the folders in 
your menu already that the new menu item is specifying in it's .desktop 
file for the location it should be installed to.

To get around this, you can always run Menu Editor, and manually add 
your new menu items. Firt to get an idea of just how many programs 
Ubuntu has neglected to add to your menu, run the following command in 
Terminal.

update-menus --stdout > ~/menuitems.txt

Now open the menuitems.txt file with Gedit [Text Editor on th 
Applicaations menu] and start looking through it for software packages 
that do not have menu entries on your current menu. When you find one, 
open the Menu Editor by right clicking on the menu on your top panel, 
and select "Edit Menus" from the small drop down menu.

Decide where on your menu that you want to add the new menu item, and 
create the new menu folder page if it doesn't already exist. Now select 
that newly created page of the menu, and then click the New Item button 
on the right hand side of the menu editor dialog.

Copy and paste the command line for the new program from the 
menuitems.txt file, into the "Command" text entry box, then if an icon 
file has been specified already, click the icon that  appears on the 
small dialog, and then click the Browse button on the select icon 
dialog. Make sure you have previously copied the new menu entrie's icon 
path and filename, so that when you add it to the icon selection dialog, 
all you have to do, it paste in the new icon setting after clicking the 
browse button, and then click "OK" on the menu item dialog to close it.

Continue down through the menuitems.txt file, and install any of the 
packages that you want to appear on your menu. When you have entered 
them all, close the menu editor, and you're done! 8-) You should have a 
read here as well to familiarize yourself with the menu system in Ubuntu.

<file:///usr/share/doc/menu/html/index.html> "The Debian Menu System"

The folders specified in that reference may vary slightly from the 
Ubuntu locations, but for the most part they are in the same places, as 
Ubuntu is a Debian based system. Note that you can add command line 
programs to menu items as well, but you will need to specify 
"Application in Terminal" in the drop down selection list at the top of 
the menu item properties dialog for them, instead of the default 
"Application" selection.

Later, Ray Parrish
-- 

Human reviewed index of links about the computer
http://www.rayslinks.com
Poetry from the mind of a Schizophrenic
http://www.writingsoftheschizophrenic.com/