[xubuntu-users] Editing the menu list

[Vincent]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 4:36 AM, Jonathan D. Armendariz <
jarmenda at lavabit.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I do have one more question to ask of you collectively. I've been trying
> to figure out how to manipulate the menu file to move things around more
> to my liking. If I understand correctly, it's stored as an XML file.
> Problem is, unless I'm completely missing something obvious, I'm not
> able to directly manipulate certain aspects of it. For example, I want
> to move a menu item from, say, the Network menu and put it over to
> Multimedia. I've looked in the forums but my search had proved
> inconclusive. Perhaps there is an easier way or some application that
> could make it easier? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
Unfortunately, Xfce 4.4 (which is used in Xubuntu up to 8.10, currently the
latest version) uses a half-baked implementation of the freedesktop.org menu
specification. The next version of Xfce, 4.6, which is supposed to be
shipped with Xubuntu 9.04, should provide a better implementation (though it
still doesn't contain a menu editor).

Anyway, Xfce's menu is built up of an XML file, where one of the entries is
"include the freedesktop.org menu structure here". The files of the
freedesktop.org standard are spread across your computer, and are stored in
.desktop files. You'll probably want to edit (as root) the .desktop files in
/usr/share/applications.

For example, if I wanted to move Firefox from Network to Multimedia, in the
file /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop, I'd change the line

Categories=Application;Network;

to

Categories=Application;AudioVideo;

See for further reference:

 * http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/
 * http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/

Cheers,
-- 
Vincent
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