In order to help you manage the main menu of your preferred window manager, Mandrake Linux provides you with a menu editor that ensures menus from all desktop environments (like KDE or GNOME) are coherent.
This tool allows system administrators to control the menus for all users (the system menu) but can be used also by users to personalize their own menus.
If started by root, menudrake can be used in two different modes: either changing menus for all users, or customizing your own menus. Click on:
if you want to make changes on the menu available for all system users;
to customize the menus for the root user only.
When you launch menudrake, it first scans your current menu structure and displays it. The main window (figure 16-46) 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 sub-menu, - 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 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
+ .Select the Application 1 appears. You now need 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.
directory, and click on the on the toolbar. An entry calledIf you wish, you can also choose an icon for your entry from the list you get by clicking on the icon itself. figure 16-47 reflects the above modifications. Once you are satisfied, click on the 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 Ctrl+R) (this reloads the menus as they were when last saved) or -> to load the virgin menus as they were at system installation time. -> ( |
Finally, to activate your changes, click on the
button, and voilą. 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 log out and log in again for the changes to take effect. |
Depending on the experience of the people working on your machine, you may want to provide them with different menu styles. Mandrake Linux provides three template menus that you can eventually customize. Those templates are available through the
button in the main window.Choose one of the three[1] options available:
All applications. This is the traditional menu shipped with Mandrake Linux holding nearly all available applications sorted in functional categories.
What to do. This is a menu specifically designed by our ergonomics team to provide a fast access to most common applications sorted by usage like , , etc.
Original menu. These are the plain menus as provided by the KDE or GNOME desktops. This menu probably lacks some applications.
For the two first styles, note that you can activate a sub-menu to the other one by checking the Add link to box. That will allow to access the other menu from the main one, thus ensuring all applications remain available.
When you have chosen a menu style and possibly an option, click
. You will then be able to see the corresponding menu structure in the main window, and you can now customize it.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
to .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. This means 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", that is 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.
[1] | If you started menudrake as a simple user, there is an additional menu style, Use system administrator settings, which will set your personal menu to the system menu prepared by the system administrator. |