editing menus.

[Ray Andrews]

On 03/04/12 01:22 AM, killermoehre wrote:

Killer,
> you can't right click because the menu is not a menu editor, but right 
> now there is a coder coding one.
Cool.  I can't say much about this yet, but it seems to me that if I can 
drag and drop a menu item onto the panel, and from there I can look at 
the properties of the item, that it should be possible to save a step 
and just look at the properties of the item right from the menu. Dunno, 
maybe not. But I like the idea of 'GUI democracy':

I hold these truths to be self evident: That all desktop items are 
created equal, that whether they live on the 'desktop', the menu or the 
panel, they all have the same rights, the same features, the same 
status. That anything can be dragged and dropped anywhere. That any 
'active' thing on the screen can be queried as to its properties.

Just dreaming ;-)

> Until then I suggest you read the official specs 
> (http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/) and the 
> wiki entry (http://wiki.xfce.org/howto/customize-menu).
> If you just want to know what an entry executes I have a one liner for 
> you:
>
> > cat $(grep -P "^Name=${APPLICATION_NAME}\s*$" 
> /usr/share/applications/* | awk -F ":" '{ print $1 }') | grep -P "^Exec="
>
> Just replace ${APPLICATION_NAME} with the name shown in the panel. 
> This was just a 3 minute hack, most time was used by reading the help 
> for grep and awk, so it isn't difficult.
Ok thanks, that gives me something to chew on.  And a quick look 
suggests that the first of those docs might answer some of my questions 
as  to  why some of our config files seem to be so needlessly complicated.

IMHO the ultimate GUI will be the one that gives the user the easiest 
access to things like menu editing.  GUIs like Gnome -- they 'give you 
what they give you' and they give it to you good, but if you want to 
change what they give you it's an ordeal.  I want Xfce to 'give me less, 
but give me what I want' so to speak.