menudrake can be started in two different modes: either changing menus for all users, or customizing your own menus. Click on:
System menu Configure: if you want to make changes on the menu available for all users of the system,
User menu Configure: if you want to customize a menu for a single user. In that case you need to select the user in the combo box before clicking the Configure button.
When you launch menudrake, it first scans your current menu structure and displays it. The main window (figure 14-31) is divided in two parts: the menu itself on the left, and on the right a form about the highlighted menu item.
You can click on the + signs of the tree to view the content of the related directory, - to hide it.
![]() | You may see in your tree entries that do not appear in your menu. These are empty directories which are not displayed. |
This should seldom happen as all Mandrake Linux graphical applications should provide a menu entry. However, if you want to add a menu entry for a package you have compiled, or for a console mode program, you may use this function. Let us imagine you want to check your home directory disk usage through a menu entry in Applications+Monitoring.
Select the Monitoring directory, and click on the Add entry on the tool bar. An entry called Application 1 appears, you need now to edit it to what you want. First change the title to say "Home usage", this is the name that will appear in the menu. Then enter a more detailed description Long menu if you wish to, it will appear on the explication balloon, let's put "Displays the size of your home directory". Finally you need to provide the action to be executed by the system (Command:): "du -shc". Do not forget to check the Open in a terminal box, as du is not a graphical application.
If you wish, you can also choose an icon for your entry from the list you get by clicking on the icon itself. figure 14-32 reflects the above modifications. Once you are satisfied, click on the Save icon.
![]() | If you think you have made a big mess of your menus and wish to come back to the previous state, you can go to File->Reload user config (Ctrl+R) (this reload the menus as they were at the last save) or File->Reload system menu to load the virgin menus as they were at system install. |
Finally, to activate your changes, click on the Save button, and voila, Congratulations! You can now test your work by going to the real menu and launching your new creation.
![]() | Depending on the window manager you currently use, the changes on your menu may not be shown immediately. In some cases, you may need to logout and login again for the changes to take effect. |
The entry we just added to the menu is now available in all graphical managers' menus. It is also possible to make modifications to a specific menu by switching the Context you are working with. For example, if you wish to add an application that should be available only in the KDE menu, simply switch from context all to kde.
All entries that apply to the selected context only appear in blue in the tree structure on the left.
menudrake entries support the drag-and-drop feature. That means that you can take an entry from a directory and move it to another simply by clicking on the entry and dragging it to the new directory without releasing the mouse button.
Similarly, you may have noticed that whenever you remove an application from the menu, it appears in the "attic": the Available applications list on the bottom right corner. If you ever wish to add them again, you simply have to drag them again to the desired directory.