Start(Launch) menu entry managment...

[g8kbv]

OK... Lubuntu 12.04 (I think, forgot as to how to find out exactly!)

I was trying to add some entries (for my own conveniance) to the "System
Tools" menu in Lubuntu's LXDE start menu(Launcher) as used on my little
Acer netbook. I was trying to create shortcuts to connect/disconnect to
my shack NAS box (Nas4Free, very good) account. (P*** easy in Windows of
course....) Easy on a command line too, but a lot of typing, and on a small keyboard,
prone to mistypes!

I used (after giving up trying to get anything to work manually) a tool
called LXMED. Downloaded, followed instructions, installed just fine.

But...

I now have two spurious (failed) menu entries in the "System Tools" menu,
that I can't remove. And worse, if I click on one in error, the machine
semi locks up, needing a forced power down and reboot to recover from.

I also found other stability issues with LXMED installed, so have
uninstalled it, and (mostly) the whole system is stable again, unless as
above I mistakenly click on one or other of the spurious entries.

Others have mentioned that they also found LXMED full of bugs.
One comment was "more bugs than my garden shed.!" But I digress...

OK, from what I understand (little...) There is no single file that is
used by the LXDE start menu system. In fact, it seems the menu is built
"on the fly" at startup from the contents of multiple files on the system.
But what files and where? I did find two of them, but XML makes my eyes
go funny. In any case, searching them, did not find evidence of either of
the spurious start menu entries.

Plus I get lost in what seems like circular symbolic link references. I
also still don't know enough to figure this out just yet...

So, what, where do I look, and how to fix it, without reloading the
entire OS, that at present seems to be the only practical fix.

Or, is there a more capable and reliable menu editor/customiser for the
LXDE desktop, that can unbreak what LXMED broke...

Cheers All.

Dave G8KBV.

[Rex Bouwense]

Hi Dave. Welcome to the lxde forum. First to find out what you are running, just enter

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lsb_release -a

in the terminal. The version will be on the description line.
For editting menus in Lubuntu, see here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubun ... ingTheMenu
I hope that is what you are looking for.

[g8kbv]

Hi Rex, thanks for the reply...

Doing the 'lsb_release -a' thing, returns (coppied by hand, as it's not on this macine.)

No LSB modules are available
Descriptor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise.

The machine (hardware) is one of the diminutive Acer Aspire One's, the ZG5 model.

I've been using it for portable Ham Radio work, with programs such as Fldigi and QSSTV etc. It Works very well indeed.

I tried installing alacarte earlier this evening, but it too has issues, as soon as you try to edit something, it crashes but doesnt die. Seems to be a common problem from what I've found so far, and not found a way out.

It also did not show the two spurious menu items. Nor does a later version of LXMED (that also crashes, but in different ways.)

Once I had uninstalled both of them, other than the still eronious menu entries, normal service is resumed. So, I've been using the machine for general web surfing this evening (ebay etc) and some webmail, so long as I don't go near the main menu and buggy buggy page, the machine behaves fine.

Your info re the folders where the shortcuts are kept are spot on, and in agreement with others.

But what I want to know, is how the (expletive deleted!) do you delete an item that shows up in the menu list, but seems to have no corresponding file in either of the two directories (/usr/share/applications/ or /usr/local/share/applications/) but does have visible "Properties" when you click on that. There is no Menu item Delete/Remove/Kill facility I (and many others) can find, that works it seems. One is only seemingly able to create new entires, but not rub out dead/bad/old ones. Or that's the way it seems at present. And judging by the way the two suposedly popular tools behave, it's not simple to do behind the facade either.

Is this another instance of something that is just sooooooooooooo easy to do with a certain (other nameless) OS, but is nigh on imposible for meer mortals in Linux?

Sorry for the gripe, but I've been trying to fix this for several days now, spending hours at a time and getting nowhere fast. I have several apps installed from sources that I do not particularly wish to go through the process of doing that again (dependancies and so on etc) for just what seems to be a simple problem, that as above on "the other" os, is so simple to manage.

Cheers.

Dave 'kbv.

[Rex Bouwense]

I have heard of applications being un-installed but for some reason there remains a residual which of course is non-functional. When you un-installed did you use the terminal, Lubuntu Software Center, or Synaptic Package Manager? I'm not sure if it makes a difference but with my experience, the Snaptic Package Manager will most certainly get rid of everything. Other people have different experiences.

edit: After some additional research, there have been mixed results from people using LXMED and Alacarte. Interesting.

[seppalta]

Only applications with a desktop file appear on the lxde-menu. If your unwanted visitor is xyz, then do a Catfish search for xyz.desktop. If you find it, go to where it is located and delete it. Desktop files can be in just about any directory in your computer, and lxmed appears fool-proof for finding them.

Alacarte is built for the gnome desktop. It does not function well, if at all, in an lxde desktop. Lxmed is built for the lxde desktop. In the 75 to 100 instances that I have installed it, it has worked perfectly. But it does need a good java program. I have found that open-jdk-iced-tea not very good in the few instances that I have tried it with an online java-based game that I like to play. So I always install Oracle-java, because it has been 100% reliable, and I place "working" above "politics."

There is a menu editor for LXDE that does not require Java. It is called lxmenuman. For information see http://lxlinux.com/#8 . I only tried it on 1 install, and it worked fine, albeit, a bit more clumsy than lxmed.

To remove orphan packages in a Debian based system, install wajig and/or upgrade-system. Run

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sudo wajig purge-orphans

and/or

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sudo upgrade-system

in the terminal.

[g8kbv]

Hi All.

Well, I want my eyes re painting.

The problem files were in the hidden folder ~/.local/share/applications/ (or whatever) as someone already suggested.

Removing them, removed the non functional menu items. There was also an empty (zero bytes) file with no name in there, I also removed that. That is, "Removed" means moved them all to a "parking" folder, just in case.

For now, normal service is resumed.

Thanks All. No doubt I'll be back the next time I can't see the wood for the trees.

I'll check back here in a day or so, in case I've done something else bad doing the above.

Dave G8KBV.

[Rex Bouwense]

Hey Dave, glad you got it worked out. Feel free to stick around and offer your assistance to others who may have problems or questions. We are a small forum with a small but growing list of active members.

[Littlebig1]

Hi,

Menu entries in the start menu depends on 2 things.
1. The entries are shown from files .desktop in /usr/share/applications but some .desktop have a special instruction line that can prevent the display in the startup menu. The line is:
NoDisplay=true

When you install a program, and it is not showing up in the start menu, edit the .desktop for this program and look inside for the line NoDisplay.

2. the entries are also built from the XDG setup that is found in /etc/xdg files. These xml text files defines additional entries that you may call something like "static" and do not depend on .desktop files.

=>> There seems to be a graphic tool convenient to edit the startup menu entries called MenuLibre.
See this link http://www.smdavis.us/projects/menulibre/

In case the blog post may disappear some day, here are install instructions:

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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:menulibre-dev/devel
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install menulibre

MenuLibre installs itself into /opt so you may need to add a symlink into /usr/local/bin

[edit] Don't forget to click button 'Save all changes' when you're done. And, because of the XDG way of building the menu entries, some users noticed it does not get refreshed until you logout and login again. Have fun

See more about it here http://www.iloveubuntu.net/create-and-e ... are-center

=>> I remember you wrote something about orphan packages on your system and you were concerned about them,
on any Ubuntu flavors you can safely run the following instructions to clean your system:

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get autoremove

For detailed explanations please read apt-get man pages

Best regards