Adding new item in the menu

jahid_0903014
  9 years ago
  8

Adding menu item can be done very simply by an application named alacarte or by other similiar softwares.

This tutorial is for those who prefer a more straight forward process without installing any additional software.

the steps are following (I will be creating a menu entry under programming section named eclipse luna) :

1. sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/eclipse-luna.desktop

eclipse-luna will be replaced  by your app name

2. copy paste the following lines

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=/home/user/eclipse-version/eclipse/eclipse
Icon=/home/user/eclipse-version/eclipse/icon.xpm
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Comment=Eclipse Integrated Development Environment
Name=Eclipse Luna
GenericName=eclipse-4.4 M4
StartupNotify=false
Categories=Development;IDE;Java;

user will be replaced by your user name.

now save and exit.

if the execution and icon path is correct then the entry will be automatically added to the menu under the programming section.

Description of the lines:

  • [Desktop Entry] - indicates that this file is a *.desktop file
  • Encoding=encoding used
  • Exec=path of a binary or script used to start the program
  • Icon - path to the icon for the entry
  • Type=Application - desktop file is starting an application
  • Terminal=false - the program will not run in a terminal
  • Comment=comment about the app
  • Name= displayed name in the menu
  • GenericName=description of the entry
  • StartupNotify=false - Startup notification is turned off
  • Categories - specifies the categories in which the entry will be placed in the menu (several categories are specified with a semicolon between them, e.g. 'Game;Education')
Comments
O-rion 3 years ago

Thank you ... helps a lot especially when this "click and play solution" fails ( and leaves double entries of categories)


uncle-thanky 6 years ago

Right click on the Menu app on the toolbar and select "configure". This will launch an applet, that has "Open the menu editor" as an option at the bottom of the child window.

From there it is self-explanatory on how to add new items to the menu and where.

Thank You "kbrobst"
Works Great!


ssdmanster 6 years ago

Thanks a lot <3 works for me like a charm xD


jahid_0903014 6 years ago

@kbrobst 
Menu editors sometime fail for different reasons, but this will never fail. Also it's for learning how things work in the backend (your menu editor just does these things by taking information from you in an interactive way).


kbrobst 6 years ago

I'm a noob, so hopefully this isn't a stupid comment. I'm thinking under Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon, this was changed to be much more simple.

Right click on the Menu app on the toolbar and select "configure". This will launch an applet, that has "Open the menu editor" as an option at the bottom of the child window.

From there it is self-explanatory on how to add new items to the menu and where.


Rebel450 9 years ago

o my god ... back to the beginning of computing


Hammer459 10 years ago

Good description