marchobmenu

ju1ius · 2009-12-28 18:51:31

Hello #!,

I hacked together a simple automated menu system, so I'm sharing it with you. smile
It's mostly mix between mint-fm2 and Fedora's openbox xdg-menu,
The script generates an "Applications" pipemenu that you can include in your openbox menu.

Also included is a rewrite in Python of the crunchbang "Places" script.
Now the folders appear at the top, like in most file managers.
You can also open file and/or folders with exo-open or gnome-open or whatever-open...

Check it out at http://github.com/ju1ius/marchobmenu

Bye !

Last edited by ju1ius (2010-08-28 17:44:36)

mrpeachy · 2009-12-28 20:09:57

I've been wondering about the possibility of automating the menu system... sometimes when i'm trying out a program i'm too lazy to add it manually to the menu system, and sometimes it isn't as simple as typing the program name at the run program prompt. So I'm gonna try this out!

Thanks

Last edited by mrpeachy (2009-12-28 20:10:12)

Kookaburra · 2009-12-28 21:05:06

It's working good on Debian Squeeze, very sympathic works ! Thanks to share that ! smile

wink

josa · 2010-01-17 17:43:51

I installed the source package, and had to clean up your locale files for en and de.

en: changed line 8 from "Sound & Video" to "Sound & Video"
en: changed line 10 from "Quit" to "Preferences"
de: changed line 10 from "Beenden" to "Einstellungen".

wink

ju1ius · 2010-01-20 15:27:39

Thanks, this is fixed !

johnraff · 2010-01-20 16:34:22

Thank you ju1ius. Installed and worked perfectly, without a hitch!
I should be able to dispense with xfce-panel at this rate.

Midas · 2010-01-23 19:57:36

Probably expected, but this doesn't work with #! x86_64... Thanks anyway. roll

ju1ius · 2010-01-24 15:59:22

Midas wrote:

Probably expected, but this doesn't work with #! x86_64... Thanks anyway.

Well, that's pretty strange because it's just a bunch of bash scripts ... hmm
Could you open a ticket and help me on this one ?
Like by describing more precisely what happens ?
Or fix it ? tongue

I have no 64bits machine...

johnraff · 2010-01-25 11:32:29

Ah ju1ius, one bug report, or enhancement request:
marchobmenu doesn't seem to look in /usr/local/shared/applications for .desktop files.
When I installed fotoxx from a .deb that's where it went, and fotoxx didn't appear in your menu.
xfce's menu got it OK.

Last edited by johnraff (2010-01-25 11:34:15)

tawan · 2010-01-25 12:08:45

ju1ius, love it smile have linked it from my blog too. It works great here, dead neat thanks.

Midas · 2010-01-25 12:30:09

I just couldn't install the deb package: "Error: Wrong architecture 'i386'".

On review, the problem resides with the deb not being compatible with 'all' instead of just 'i386' (haven't tried the dpkg --force route).

Ticket opened: http://code.google.com/p/marchobmenu/issues/detail?id=2

TIA,

ju1ius · 2010-01-28 17:17:12

johnraff wrote:

marchobmenu doesn't seem to look in /usr/local/shared/applications for .desktop files.

And I think it shouldn't...
I use the /usr/local dir for the applications I want to test by compiling from source.
When i'm shure I want to install it, I recompile with --prefix=/usr.
I wouldn't like having my menu cluttered by those testing apps.

An easy fix for you is:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/share/applications/fotoxx.desktop /usr/share/applications

Midas wrote:

On review, the problem resides with the deb not being compatible with 'all' instead of just 'i386'

Thanks for pointing this out !
I changed the packages properties.
Can you confirm this is fixed ?

johnraff · 2010-01-29 04:05:33

ju1ius wrote:

johnraff wrote:
marchobmenu doesn't seem to look in /usr/local/shared/applications for .desktop files.
And I think it shouldn't...
I use the /usr/local dir for the applications I want to test by compiling from source.
When i'm shure I want to install it, I recompile with --prefix=/usr.
I wouldn't like having my menu cluttered by those testing apps.

That's fair enough. There is a point of view that /usr/share should be only for apps installed though the "official" system channels, and anything else should go in /usr/local, but it comes down to taste here I suppose, or whether a lot of your system is locally compiled or mostly from the repositories. A lot of deb files that you can download independently seem to install to /usr/local, which I prefer I think.

So it wasn't a bug it was a feature smile

(still a very nice menu btw)

ju1ius · 2010-02-06 17:22:29

New version available !

changelog:
* more locales
* fixed parsing for "System" and "Preferences" categories
* added a "Wine" category

#! wink

johnraff · 2010-02-23 05:38:27

ju1ius, it might need a little tweaking: I didn't find any "wine" category (I have got wine installed), and the "other" category has some empty spaces.

ju1ius · 2010-03-01 10:11:42

Thanks for the feedback johnraff, but could you help me a little more ?
A screenshot is useless for me to solve your issue...

The first thing you could try is:
1. look into your "~/.config/openbox/marchobmenu/submenus/Other" file.
This file should contain the name of the problematic .desktop files.
2. Try moving the problematic .desktop file out of the /usr/share/applications directory, then moving them back in

If it stilll doesn't work, please file a bug at the google code repository, and describe the issue precisely.
Be sure to join your "~/.config/openbox/marchobmenu/submenus/Other" file.
You could also do this:
change this line in your startup file from:
/usr/lib/marchobmenu/./marchobmenu-launcher &> /dev/null
to
/usr/lib/marchobmenu/./marchobmenu-launcher > ~/marchobmenu.log
Then logout, log back in, repeat steps 1 & 2 and join the ~/marchobmenu.log file to your bug report.

This is the only way for me to understand what's going wrong here wink
Thanks for your feedback !

johnraff · 2010-03-01 15:43:28

I find this a very useful addition to the default #! menu, and I'm happy to help if I can...

I'll post a bug report, but might as well put it here too. Some entries in ~/.config/openbox/marchobmenu/submenus/Others were for apps not installed that had left desktop files behind: those appeared in the menu, as of course they should - I deleted the desktop files. The blank spaces in the "Others" menu were related to real desktop files, but the data had been corrupted. You can see also that the ".desktop" ending had been dropped from the filenames. Here's the file:

  <item label="About Xfce" id="/usr/share/applications/xfce4-about-xfce.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>xfce4-about</execute></action></item>
  <item label="Browse C:\ Drive" id="/usr/share/applications/wine-browsedrive.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>xdg-open .wine/dosdevices/c:</execute></action></item>
  <item label="Configure Wine" id="/usr/share/applications/wine-winecfg.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>winecfg</execute></action></item>
  <item label="File Manager" id="/usr/share/applications/xfce4-file-manager.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>Thunar</execute></action></item>
  <item label="Help" id="/usr/share/applications/xfce4-help.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>xfhelp4</execute></action></item>
  <item label="" id="/usr/share/applications/firefox-3.5"><action name="Execute"><execute></execute></action></item>
  <item label="" id="/usr/share/applications/openoffice.org-base"><action name="Execute"><execute></execute></action></item>
  <item label="" id="/usr/share/applications/openoffice.org-calc"><action name="Execute"><execute></execute></action></item>
  <item label="" id="/usr/share/applications/openoffice.org-draw"><action name="Execute"><execute></execute></action></item>
  <item label="" id="/usr/share/applications/openoffice.org-impress"><action name="Execute"><execute></execute></action></item>
  <item label="" id="/usr/share/applications/openoffice.org-math"><action name="Execute"><execute></execute></action></item>
  <item label="" id="/usr/share/applications/openoffice.org-writer"><action name="Execute"><execute></execute></action></item>
  <item label="" id="/usr/share/applications/python2.5"><action name="Execute"><execute></execute></action></item>
  <item label="IE6" id="/usr/share/applications/ie6.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>ie6</execute></action></item>
  <item label="Log Out" id="/usr/share/applications/xfce4-logout.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>xfce4-session-logout</execute></action></item>
  <item label="Notepad" id="/usr/share/applications/wine-notepad.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>notepad</execute></action></item>
  <item label="Run Program..." id="/usr/share/applications/xfce4-run-program.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>xfrun4</execute></action></item>
  <item label="Terminal" id="/usr/share/applications/xfce4-term.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>exo-open --launch TerminalEmulator</execute></action></item>
  <item label="Uninstall Wine Software" id="/usr/share/applications/wine-uninstaller.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>wine uninstaller</execute></action></item>
  <item label="Web Browser" id="/usr/share/applications/xfce4-web-browser.desktop"><action name="Execute"><execute>exo-open --launch WebBrowser </execute></action></item>

Now, moving the desktop files related to the bad entries out of /usr/share/applications and logging out/in again resulted in no change to the "others" file. The deleted files (eg the "About Xfce" entry at the top) were still referred to, as were the ones that had been moved out. Moving them back in and redoing logout/in again made no change. A desktop file I created yesterday (the "IE6" item) was correctly added to the menu though...

Here's the marchobmenu.log file:

============================> /usr/lib/marchobmenu/./marchobmenu-launcher
Starting marchobmenu-launcher
daemon found 5165 john     inotifywait -q -m -r --format %f -e create /home/john/.config/openbox/marchobmenu/triggers
killing 5165
Check for pending updates ...
============================> /usr/lib/marchobmenu/./marchobmenu-userdaemon

( desktop files moved )

============================> /usr/lib/marchobmenu/./marchobmenu-launcher
Starting marchobmenu-launcher
daemon found 8295 john     inotifywait -q -m -r --format %f -e create /home/john/.config/openbox/marchobmenu/triggers
killing 8295
Check for pending updates ...
============================> /usr/lib/marchobmenu/./marchobmenu-userdaemon

(desktop files restored)

============================> /usr/lib/marchobmenu/./marchobmenu-launcher
Starting marchobmenu-launcher
daemon found 10431 john     inotifywait -q -m -r --format %f -e create /home/john/.config/openbox/marchobmenu/triggers
killing 10431
Check for pending updates ...
============================> /usr/lib/marchobmenu/./marchobmenu-userdaemon

Anyway, I'll post all this to that google site as well.

tawan · 2010-03-01 22:19:56

I also have this problem. The 'Others' category grows with empty entries and some entries persist for programs long gone.

I have edited them out of the menu and made sure the desktop files are gone, still they just come back.

I wont post my details as they are pretty much the same situation as above.

tawan · 2010-03-05 10:53:20

Trying it on Arch now and have a new problem (most probably caused by me big_smile )

Here is the issue.

[fixed] Ok, fixed it now. Not my error, the outputted xml had an unescaped '&' that was breaking the menu.

Last edited by tawan (2010-03-06 00:14:16)

tawan · 2010-03-14 00:08:29

@ju1ius did you see drsjiazar replied to you on Arch? He sent you a PM there I guess.

johnraff · 2010-03-18 04:43:43

ju1ius, I owe you a humble apology - I was using the previous version of marchobmenu, 0.1.1-1. (Fortunately I did mark it as such in the bug report.)

When I deleted my ~/.config/openbox/marchobmenu folder and upgraded to 0.1.2-1 everything was fixed! Openoffice entries are fine, likewise "wine" and "others" categories, no blank entries and no leftover entries from deleted .desktop files. marchobmenu is a very nice addition to the openbox menu.

Now the only issue remaining is desktop files with the line
Terminal=true
for example the menu "htop" entry is executed with the command "htop", where "terminator htop" or "x-terminal-emulator htop" would be needed. I'll post a report. (marchobmenu is not alone here though, the xfce menu seems to have the same problem.)

johnraff · 2010-03-21 03:14:17

...oops, spoke too soon. Now I've got no "multimedia" submenu, or whatever the name for the audio/video stuff should be. It appears in xfce's menu OK, and was there with marchobmenu 0.1.1-1

This must be harder than it looks neutral

ju1ius · 2010-08-26 23:45:55

Marchobmenu first stable release is out ! cool

It has been heavily refactored the daemon is still very lightweight (written in bash),
but the menu is now generated by a python script,
and is now fully XDG compliant thanks to the python-xdg module !

Please check it out on github:
http://github.com/ju1ius/marchobmenu
There's also a package available:
http://github.com/ju1ius/marchobmenu/downloads

PS:
apologies for my long silence here but I was stuck with an old mint-fluxbox-5 distro,
and couldn't develop this furthermore.
I'm now back to openbox, with a new shiny "crunbangified" Debian Sid !

ju1ius · 2010-08-27 23:28:54

And a new version again (1.2), with a few minor improvements.

I added a command to refresh the menu, so it can now be used (but won't auto-refresh) without the daemon running for those who like to save the extra Mb of RAM.

The places script can now open files (and folders) with exo-open or gnome-open.
Folders are now showed at the top, like in most file managers.

There's also a Wiki,
and of course a new debian package

ju1ius · 2010-08-28 17:44:10

New version 1.3 with a major improvement:

MarchOBMenu now uses the dpkg trigger system on distributions using dpkg/apt.
It means that in this case the menu daemon is no longer needed, except if you modified a .desktop file manually !
It also means that if you install 25 applications at once, the menu is only regenerated once !

Now we're getting close to something useful !

Other distros using rpm or pacman still need the daemon, until i find something else...

Last edited by ju1ius (2010-08-28 17:52:24)

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#1 2009-12-28 18:51:31

marchobmenu

#2 2009-12-28 20:09:57

Re: marchobmenu

#3 2009-12-28 21:05:06

Re: marchobmenu

#4 2010-01-17 17:43:51

Re: marchobmenu

#5 2010-01-20 15:27:39

Re: marchobmenu

#6 2010-01-20 16:34:22

Re: marchobmenu

#7 2010-01-23 19:57:36

Re: marchobmenu

#8 2010-01-24 15:59:22

Re: marchobmenu

#9 2010-01-25 11:32:29

Re: marchobmenu

#10 2010-01-25 12:08:45

Re: marchobmenu

#11 2010-01-25 12:30:09

Re: marchobmenu

#12 2010-01-28 17:17:12

Re: marchobmenu

#13 2010-01-29 04:05:33

Re: marchobmenu

#14 2010-02-06 17:22:29

Re: marchobmenu

#15 2010-02-23 05:38:27

Re: marchobmenu

#16 2010-03-01 10:11:42

Re: marchobmenu

#17 2010-03-01 15:43:28

Re: marchobmenu

#18 2010-03-01 22:19:56

Re: marchobmenu

#19 2010-03-05 10:53:20

Re: marchobmenu

#20 2010-03-14 00:08:29

Re: marchobmenu

#21 2010-03-18 04:43:43

Re: marchobmenu

#22 2010-03-21 03:14:17

Re: marchobmenu

#23 2010-08-26 23:45:55

Re: marchobmenu

#24 2010-08-27 23:28:54

Re: marchobmenu

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Re: marchobmenu

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