LXDE Forums

Is it possible to prevent entries for selected LX-components (and perhaps other packages) from being listed in the 'start' menu for all present and future users of a multi-user system?

The ideal solution would also prevent the entries from being displayed when the component or package is:

• Re-installed on top of one currently installed
  Upgraded to a newer version

Copy the *.desktop files of the applications you don't want to have display in the menu to ~/.local/share/applications and/or to /etc/skel/.local/share/applications and add the line "Hidden=true" in them. And see that thread:http://forum.lxde.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=221

archibald haddock wrote:Copy the *.desktop files of the applications you don't want to have display in the menu to ~/.local/share/applications and...
add the line "Hidden=true" in them.

Guidance conducted without success. Have I missed something?

Files copied from: /usr/share/applications/filename.desktop
Files copied to: ~/.local/share/applications/filename.desktop
Entry added: Hidden=true

The files are owned by user of $HOME directory
Permissions on each file=rw_r__r__

Logout and login = menu entries visible
Reboot = menu entries visible

Example contents of .desktop files:

• LXARCHIVER
  [Desktop Entry]
  Encoding=UTF-8
  Version=1.0
  Name=Xarchiver
  Comment=A GTK+2 only archive manager
  GenericName=Archive manager
  Exec=xarchiver
  Icon=xarchiver.png
  Terminal=false
  Type=Application
  X-MultipleArgs=false
  Categories=GTK;Archiving;Utility;
  StartupNotify=true
  MimeType=application/x-arj;application/arj;application/x-bzip;application/x-bzip-compressed-tar;application/x-gzip;application/x-rar;application/x-rar-compressed;application/x-tar;application/x-zip;application/x-zip-compressed;application/zip;multipart/x-zip;application/x-7z-compressed;application/x-compressed-tar;application/x-bzip2;application/x-bzip2-compressed-tar;application/x-deb;application/deb
  Hidden=true

• SUN JAVA6 CONTROL PANEL
  [Desktop Entry]
  Encoding=UTF-8
  Name=Sun Java 6 Plugin Control Panel
  Comment=Sun Java 6 Plugin Control Panel
  Exec=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.10/bin/ControlPanel
  Terminal=false
  Type=Application
  Icon=sun-java6
  Categories=Settings;
  Hidden=true

I must say, that I have never used that and just copied this info form the given link.

Another easy way and probably "more" secure would be to move all the applications a normal user should not have away from /usr/share/applications and copy them to the folders of the people, they should have them.

In advance, you could create some only root writable folders (e.g. root-apps, user-apps, ...) and create symbolic links from ~/.local/share/applications/ to this folders.

I tested it short and I think it is possible to add the respective symbolic links in /etc/skel.

Maybe there is another easy GUI or so way, but I like to do things with config files by hand.

archibald haddock wrote:I must say, that I have never used that and just copied this info form the given link.

Is the source of this advice known? (Documentation etc) It might assist further investigation to be able to verify that the advice lists the correct actions and also identify any additional options or requirements.

archibald haddock wrote:Another easy way and probably "more" secure would be to move all the applications a normal user should not have away from /usr/share/applications and copy them to the folders of the people, they should have them.

This may well be a workable option but may not be suitable for my purpose. Ultimately, maintanance will be required for multiple machines used randomly by multiple users of the LAN. Manually creating and maintaining individual configurations will quickly become unfeasible.

http://forum.lxde.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=221 (Like in the first post ).

Could you explain the situation a bit more detailed?

Another idea I got: Make read permissons group dependable and move all your admins in a desktop admin group, so they can read the *.desktop files. Or just delete near all desktop files and let the admins run the programms via terminal.

Keeping the same configuration on all servers could be achieved by e.g. that: http://www.netfort.gr.jp/~dancer/software/dsh.html.en

But I think I am the wrong person to ask for that. I nearly always used my system alone and not in any productive environment.