Application Menu problems

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mendrak
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 28, 2018 4:16 am

Application Menu problems

Post by mendrak »

I've been setting up a system using the Beyond Linux from Scratch guide and have successfully installed the LXDE desktop. Seems to mostly work fine, but I am having problems with the application menu. What I mean is the one at the lower left hand corner of the LXPanel.

It only has Run and Logout.

I looked at the ~/.config/lxpanel/LXDE/panels directory and see a "panel" file which sure enough has just those 2 items in it.

What I'm not able to figure out is how to update it. The WIKI says I should be able to update it with the pcmanfm application which does indeed have an "Applicatons" place. When I click on it is blank and I can't seem to do anything with it.

I suspect somewhere along the line I missed something in the overall setup but I see multiple entries in /usr/share/applications (including lxrandr.desktop and lxterminal.desktop). There are also plenty of entries in /etc/xdg, including /etc/xdg/lxpanel, /etc/xdg/menus, etc.

I'm not sure where to start looking.

Is the application menu supposed to populate automatically?
seppalta
Posts: 449
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:09 am
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Application Menu problems

Post by seppalta »

It is a dynamical menu and should populate itself with the applications in the various application directories. But there is a lot you can do with changing the form of the menu. Details can be found at http://lxlinux.com/menucategoryconfig.html after May 31. Sorry, bandwidth quota for May has been exceeded, so nothing will show until June.
mendrak
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 28, 2018 4:16 am

Re: Application Menu problems

Post by mendrak »

I couldn't follow the link, but since the application menu isn't being generated, does anyone know what part of the code is doing that dynamic menu creation or where errors might be logged since it isn't seeming to find them or build them.
seppalta
Posts: 449
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:09 am
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Application Menu problems

Post by seppalta »

What do you mean: "I couldn't follow the link"? The link will not be active until June 1st, so up to tomorrow, there should be nothing to follow.

Are you saying that the menu does not show any categories? Have you tried "lxpanelctl restart" or "lxpanelctl menu" in the terminal?
mendrak
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 28, 2018 4:16 am

Re: Application Menu problems

Post by mendrak »

Yes I meant that when I clicked on the link it gave an error, but of course as you indicated it wasn't available till today.

I did try lxpanelctl restart but to no avail.

However I did rebuild menu-cache-1.1.0 and that seems to have resolved the issue. I don't know if something had failed to compile/install or I had missed some other step but now I'm getting the menu to populate beautifully.

Thanks for your help and the details on setting up menu categories in the posted link.
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