How to customize lxde menu?

Hello,

I would like to know how could I add a custom category in lxde menu.
I already know how to add or modify applications changing .desktop entries under /usr/share/applications.

What I would like to do is to add a complete new category on the menu and choose its position, for example "My Staff" after "Office" or "My Apps" before "Accessories" and then populating it by changing .desktop entries under /usr/share/applications.

I tried to undesrtand something changing things under /etc/xdg/menus but I came to no point.

I also discovered a useful tool to edit menu called lxmed
http://lxmed.sourceforge.net/
and using it I discovered I had hidden categories on my menu,
for example there's a category called "Other" which is not shown on my menu.

So: how can I (also) make visible hidden categories? Or viceversa how can I hide visible categories?

Last thing: is it possible to add sub-categories?
I mean category: Internet > subcategory: Browsers > applications: Chrome, Firefox, Opera

and so on.

Thanks for any help!




    It's probably easier to just change the menu in leafpad. You can add a menu to the layout by inserting something into the layout like:

    Code:

    <Menuname>Faves</Menuname>

    Then define the menu like this:

    Code:

    <Menu>
        <Name>Faves</Name>
        <AppDir>dir</AppDir>
        <Include>
    	<All></All>
        </Include>
    </Menu>

    Then, any .desktop file you copy into the "dir" subfolder (of the folder where you store this .menu file) will appear in your submenu.

    Help yourself: Ubuntu Docs - Ubuntu Packages


Thanks for your tip.

Yes: that's was my idea too, but I haven't understood which is the menu file to change.

Could you point me to the right file?
Thanks


If there isn't already a file in ~/.config/menus you should create that folder and copy one of the menus from /etc/xdg/menus into it first. Then edit the copy.


Ok, many thanks for having pointed me to the right direction.

I' ve found a working way to solve it, it's a little bit tricky, so not so easy, but it works.

First of all I noticed it requires to have installed alacarte, I don't know what change this does but that's it.
Maybe someone could explain me that, it would be great to know.

So, for future reference, here's my howto to have a new main category with its sub-category on the menu:

1.
As said install alacarte
Code:

sudo apt-get install alacarte

2.
create a new file lxde-applications.menu under ~/.config/menus
Code:

touch ~/.config/menus/lxde-applications.menu

edit it and add the follow:
Code:

leafpad ~/.config/menus/lxde-applications.menu

HTML Code:

<!DOCTYPE Menu
  PUBLIC '-//freedesktop//DTD Menu 1.0//EN'
  'http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-1.0.dtd'>

<Menu>
	<Name>Applications</Name>
	<MergeFile type="parent">/etc/xdg/menus/lxde-applications.menu</MergeFile>
	<Directory>lxde-menu-applications.directory</Directory>
	<!-- Read standard .directory and .desktop file locations -->
	<DefaultAppDirs/>
	<DefaultDirectoryDirs/>
	<!-- Read in overrides and child menus from applications-merged/ -->
	<DefaultMergeDirs/>
</Menu>

3
create a new file scripts.menu under ~/.config/menus/applications-merged/
Code:

touch ~/.config/menus/applications-merged/scripts.menu

edit it and add the follow:
Code:

leafpad ~/.config/menus/scripts.menu

HTML Code:

<!DOCTYPE Menu PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD Menu 1.0//EN"
"http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/menu-spec/menu-1.0.dtd">

<Menu>
	<Name>Applications</Name>
	<Menu>
		<Name>MY Scripts</Name>
		<Directory>scripts.directory</Directory>
		<Include>
			<Filename>scripts-app1.desktop</Filename>
		</Include>
		<Menu>
			<Name>Scripts Folder</Name>
			<Directory>scripts-folder.directory</Directory>
			<Include>
				<Filename>scripts-app2.desktop</Filename>
			</Include>
		</Menu>
	</Menu>
</Menu>

4
create a new file scripts.directory under ~/.local/share/desktop-directories/
Code:

touch ~/.local/share/desktop-directories/scripts.directory

edit it and add the follow:
Code:

leafpad ~/.local/share/desktop-directories/scripts.directory

HTML Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Icon=utilities-terminal
Type=Directory
Name=Scripts

5
create a new png icon under
~/.local/share/icons/
and call it scripts-app1.png

6
create a new file scripts-app1.desktop under ~/.local/share/applications/
Code:

touch ~/.local/share/applications/scripts-app1.desktop

edit it and add the follow:
Code:

leafpad ~/.local/share/applications/scripts-app1.desktop

HTML Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Scripts First Application
Comment=Here your comment
Exec=lxterminal %u
Icon=scripts-app1
Categories=PackageManager;GTK;

7
create a new file scripts-folder.directory under ~/.local/share/desktop-directories/scripts-folder.directory
Code:

touch ~/.local/share/desktop-directories/scripts-folder.directory

edit it and add the follow:
Code:

leafpad ~/.local/share/desktop-directories/scripts-folder.directory

HTML Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Directory
Name=Scripts Folder
Icon=folder

8
create a new png icon under
~/.local/share/icons/
and call it scripts-app2.png

9
create a new file scripts-app2.desktop under ~/.local/share/applications/
Code:

touch ~/.local/share/applications/scripts-app2.desktop

edit it and add the follow:
Code:

leafpad ~/.local/share/applications/scripts-app2.desktop

HTML Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Scripts Second Application
Comment=Here your comment
Exec=lxterminal %u
Icon=scripts-app2
Categories=PackageManager;GTK;


Then you have to refresh you lxpanel by loggin out and in again or by killing it and restarting it.
Code:

killall lxpanel
lxpanel

To complete you can use alacarte to hide/show your categories/sub-categories/elements

I still haven't worked on this to know how it does it,
maybe in the future I will investigate on it or maybe someone can help me in that.

For now this works for me!
Hope this may help.

Cheers


 That looks like a lot of trouble just to avoid understanding how the Layout or Include tags work. But if it works, it works. Good job.