Menu editor not working

[Thomas Blasejewicz]

Good morning everyone.
I am trying to use Mint 19, but since this seems to be based on Ubuntu,
someone suggested I may not be thrown out of here right away.

Problem:
I made (as far as I can tell identical) clean new installations of Mint
19 (formerly used Mint 17.2) on 3 different PCs, all o which are
somewhat older.
The menu editor does work in 2 out of them, including one very old PC,
but not the one here in my office.

When I try to add some "New Item", there is no response to clicking that
button at all.
Other buttons like "Properties" do not work.
When asked whether I would like to add a launcher created on the desktop
also to the menu, this does not work either.
I also installed Alacarte, but the behavior is exactly the same.

Is there a magic trick, some setting anywhere, that can resolve this
"problem"?
It is not really a problem, but used to work under Mint 17.

Thank you.
Thomas

[Liam Proven]

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
Good morning everyone.
I am trying to use Mint 19, but since this seems to be based on Ubuntu,
someone suggested I may not be thrown out of here right away.
I made (as far as I can tell identical) clean new installations of Mint
19 (formerly used Mint 17.2) on 3 different PCs, all o which are
somewhat older.
The menu editor does work in 2 out of them, including one very old PC,
but not the one here in my office.
When I try to add some "New Item", there is no response to clicking that
button at all.
Other buttons like "Properties" do not work.
When asked whether I would like to add a launcher created on the desktop
also to the menu, this does not work either.
I also installed Alacarte, but the behavior is exactly the same.
Is there a magic trick, some setting anywhere, that can resolve this
"problem"?
It is not really a problem, but used to work under Mint 17.

What desktop?

Tell us about the hardware and the drivers.
--
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Email: ***@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: ***@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: [phone] - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): [phone]

[Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users]

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
Good morning everyone.

Good morning :)

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
I am trying to use Mint 19, but since this seems to be based on
Ubuntu, someone suggested I may not be thrown out of here right away.

did "someone" suggested that in reply to a request you already posted
somewhere? If so, don't sent a link to this thread, but please inform
us what already was done apart from installing alacarte.

IMO your hardware is unimportant, but I agree that mentioning the
desktop environment is important, you also should mention what
distro specific packages are installed. From an Ubuntu
standpoint packages installed from a Mint repository, are third party
packages. If you don't tell us what third party packages are
installed, it might be impossible to help you. At least tell us on what
Ubuntu release Mint 19 is based on. We could google this for you, but
IMO it's your homework to provide at least the information regarding
the Ubuntu release.

"Users of Ubuntu and officially supported derivatives
(Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu) can get support here. Users of
derivatives (such as Backtrack and Linux Mint) are not officially
supported." - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuUsersListFAQ#FAQ2

Regards,
Ralf
--
Kitty, Daisy & Lewis - The Game Is On

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis - Down On My Knees

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis - Black Van

[Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users]

We could google this for you, but IMO it's your homework to provide at
least the information regarding the Ubuntu release...

...and the used desktop environment.

[Liam Proven]

On Wed, 31 Oct 2018 at 10:21, Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users

Post by Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
IMO your hardware is unimportant, but I agree that mentioning the
desktop environment is important

The reason I asked is quite simple.

Mint offers a range of desktops, just like Ubuntu, but the primary 2
are Maté and Cinnamon.

Cinnamon requires OpenGL to work. Maté doesn't.

So if the OP has not got working 3D drivers for their graphics card
installed, it's possible some Cinnamon features might not work. This
should not be the case with Maté.

I've been evaluating Cinnamon on a couple of physical machines and in
VMs recently, under 3 distros. I'm sorry to say that it hasn't done
well. It works, it looks nice (apart from the lack of vertical taskbar
support), but I've experienced crashes and instability, and I was
unable to connect to a Wifi network whose password had changed. There
*is* a graphical settings editor, but it's not connected to the
network status icon -- I had to run it from a shell.

Small things but enough for me to decide that I will not use or recommend it.

Given the glitches that I have experienced, then I would not be
surprised if others experienced different but comparable glitches.
Such as, say, applets failing to start, as the OP describes.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: ***@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: ***@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: [phone] - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): [phone]

[Peter Flynn]

Excuse my ignorance, but is it Maté as in tea or Mate as in friend?

///Peter

[Liam Proven]

Post by Peter Flynn
Excuse my ignorance, but is it Maté as in tea or Mate as in friend?

The desktop is named after the tea so it's pronounced Mah-TAY with 2 syllables.

It is _not_ "mate" /meɪt/ as in "pal" or "friend".

See the bottom of https://mate-desktop.org/

In Spanish, "mate" would be mah-tay. However in English it's one
syllable with a dipthong for the vowel sound, so it's written maté to
make it clear that is's not the English noun "mate".

That's why I write it Maté and not MATE as the developers use.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: ***@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: ***@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: [phone] - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): [phone]

[Peter Flynn]

Post by Liam Proven

Post by Peter Flynn
Excuse my ignorance, but is it Maté as in tea or Mate as in
friend?

The desktop is named after the tea so it's pronounced Mah-TAY with 2 syllables.

Thank you.

Post by Liam Proven
In Spanish, "mate" would be mah-tay. However in English it's one
syllable with a dipthong for the vowel sound, so it's written maté
to make it clear that is's not the English noun "mate".

Make sense.

I tried it once. I think 'acquired taste' is the closest.

///Peter

[Liam Proven]

Post by Peter Flynn
I tried it once. I think 'acquired taste' is the closest.

Yeah, I wouldn't disagree with that. :-D

It's not actually nasty but it's weird. Not a big fan, and I try to
keep my caffeine intake down, anyway.

My weird-non-european-way-of-getting-caffeine is to eat kola nuts,
when I can get them. They're a bit of an acquired taste, too...
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: ***@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: ***@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: [phone] - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): [phone]

[Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users]

[snip]
Cinnamon requires OpenGL to work. Maté doesn't.
[snip]
Given the glitches that I have experienced, then I would not be
surprised if others experienced different but comparable glitches.
Such as, say, applets failing to start, as the OP describes.

Ok, so it belongs to the category "you never know". However, editing
menus based on desktop files, by a menu editor, never was satisfying.
What ever provides the feature to add what ever kind of launcher to the
menu, too, doesn't sound as a good idea either. In short, nobody should
rely on freedesktop.org standards of that sort, let alone relying on
"user-friendly" editors for super easy management of desktop files.
Handling of such things is a task for a power user with much free time.
However, maybe the OP expects that all menus are based upon desktop
files. Actually the menus of some panels, or right click menus on the
desktop, could have a config file, instead of generating a menu based
upon freedesktop.org standards.

[Liam Proven]

On Thu, 1 Nov 2018 at 03:40, Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users

Post by Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
Ok, so it belongs to the category "you never know".

I guess so.

A lot of the weird stuff around GNOME 3 and Cinnamon starts to make
sense when you realise 2 things:

[1] that the whole environment is built from Javascript plug-ins into
a 3D window compositor. JS is a poorly-defined language which is
currently very fashionable. It's interpreted so it is run via a lot of
just-in-time compilers and other speed-up techniques, which is not
good for stable or predictable behaviour.

[2] it's closely tied into to questionable bits of the modern Linux
ecosystem, such as systemd, Flatpak and so on. This is why you don't
see it on non-Linux free Unixes, and why Cinnamon isn't an option on
Devuan or other systemd-free distros.

Post by Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
However, editing
menus based on desktop files, by a menu editor, never was satisfying.

You know what? IMHO, one of the greatest advances in Win95 -- the
original desktop _all_ modern Linux desktops copy -- was the brilliant
idea of having the Start menu defined by a simple directory hierarchy
full of shortcuts (aliases/symlinks).

This of course is the one thing the Linux desktops _didn't_ copy.

All the menu editors I've seen are horrid kludges to get around this fact.

Side note: the current generation of programmers at MS itself don't
appreciate this, which is why it's gone from Win8 onwards.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: ***@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: ***@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: [phone] - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): [phone]

[Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users]

Post by Liam Proven
IMHO, one of the greatest advances in Win95

I run (Windows XP not that often anymore but very often) Windows 7 in a
VM. The menus are not always, but most of the times good. On Linux menus
tend to have copies of items within the same sub-menu and other
oddities. While my panel's menu does include a menu based upon
freedesktop.org standard desktop files, it mainly is based upon a
config file, so instead of managing all desktop files to my taste, I
simply keep most of the freedesktop.org standard desktop files as they
are and just edit the config of my panel's menu.

[Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users]

It's interpreted so it is run via a lot of just-in-time compilers and
other speed-up techniques, which is not good for stable or predictable
behaviour.

The C64's BASIC interpreter worked without issues. It didn't compile
at all, the basic commands just call machine code routines.
Actually I even called some of that routines, when I wrote programs in
Assembly, OTOH if I wrote a program in BASIC, I sometimes needed to
wrote a BASIC expansion in Assembly, too.
--
pacman -Q linux{,-rt{-securityink,-pussytoes,-cornflower,}}|cut -d\ -f2
4.19.arch1-1
4.19_rt1-0
4.18.16_rt9-1
4.18.16_rt8-1
4.18.12_rt7-1

[Thomas Blasejewicz]

Good evening (rather good night) everyone

Post by Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
did "someone" suggested that in reply to a request you already posted
somewhere?

I asked for help at the Tokyo Linux User Group (I happen to live in
Japan) and they suggested I should ask here.

Well, I am very sorry for the commotion I caused and at the same time
thankful for all the information.
I have to confess: I AM using Cinnamon, which seems to be very unpopular
here.
Personally I like its appearance and had so far no problems with it. The
menu editor too is working on two other computers.

While most of the technical suggestions are rather beyond my
comprehension of computer technology,
the problem is not really a "problem" - just a little annoying.
The OS provides the function of menu editing. All I wanted to do is use it.

Searching the net I found, that it is possible to install Mate in
addition to Cinnamon.
I will try to do that (when I can find the time) and see what happens.

PS: Mint 19 is said to be based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Cinnmon on Gnome 3
Third party packages: I checkmarked a box during installation, asking me
whether I want to have third party packages
related to Wi-Fi, graphics, codecs etc. installed. It did not say, what
those packages are.

Post by Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
"Users of Ubuntu and officially supported derivatives
(Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu) can get support here. Users of
derivatives (such as Backtrack and Linux Mint) are not officially
supported."

I will try not to bother the list again.
Thank you.
Thomas

[Colin Law]

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
...
Well, I am very sorry for the commotion I caused and at the same time
thankful for all the information.

I wouldn't worry about the commotion, it is not unusual to have lively
discussions here.

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
I have to confess: I AM using Cinnamon, which seems to be very unpopular
here.

I don't think it is that is very unpopular here, just that most of us
have no experience of it, and the couple that do don't like it.
Many Mint related issues are basically the same issues that are seen
with Ubuntu, however, since Cinnamon is, I think, not one of the
standard Ubuntu desktops it is less likely that you will find anyone
here who can help.

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
I will try not to bother the list again.

Do not be concerned about bothering us again if you have a problem in
an area that *is* common with Ubuntu. Provided you do not give the
impression that you *expect* to get help then there is no harm in
asking. Of course if you like Maté then you could switch to Ubuntu
Maté and then no-one would have any excuse for not helping you :)

Colin

[Liam Proven]

Post by Colin Law
Do not be concerned about bothering us again if you have a problem in
an area that *is* common with Ubuntu.

Definitely. Ralf is a little irascible ;-) but we try to be approachable.

I am a bit torn on Mint. I have done a significant project on Mint in
the past and they were helpful and cooperative -- far more so than
Ubuntu.

But there is a lot of feeling that Mint is a bit of a mongrel distro,
and Ubuntu is more "pure".

Also the Mint mailing list was dead and has been shut down. The forums
are not very helpful IME.

Post by Colin Law
Of course if you like Maté then you could switch to Ubuntu
Maté and then no-one would have any excuse for not helping you :)

Seconded. I would suggest either Ubuntu Maté or Xubuntu. I quite like
the latter -- Xfce works very well, IME far better than GNOME 3 or
Cinnamon, and it supports a feature I like that Maté does not.
--
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: ***@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: ***@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: [phone] - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): [phone]

[Little Girl]

Hey there,

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
I asked for help at the Tokyo Linux User Group (I happen to live in
Japan) and they suggested I should ask here.
Well, I am very sorry for the commotion I caused and at the same
time thankful for all the information.

No worries. You haven't caused any commotion.

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
I have to confess: I AM using Cinnamon, which seems to be very
unpopular here.

It can be nice to stand out from the crowd.

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
Personally I like its appearance and had so far no problems with it.
The menu editor too is working on two other computers.

Does it work on the computer that's having the issue if you create a
new user and try to edit the menu while logged in under that account
or does that user have the same issue?

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
While most of the technical suggestions are rather beyond my
comprehension of computer technology,
the problem is not really a "problem" - just a little annoying.
The OS provides the function of menu editing. All I wanted to do is use it.

I would definitely consider that a problem and I hope you'll be able
to solve it in here.

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
Searching the net I found, that it is possible to install Mate in
addition to Cinnamon.
I will try to do that (when I can find the time) and see what
happens.

You might want to try that in a virtual machine, first, to see if you
like it. You'll end up with more menu entries since each has some
programs that the other doesn't and all menu entries will be visible
no matter which desktop you happen to be using.

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
Third party packages: I checkmarked a box during installation,
asking me whether I want to have third party packages
related to Wi-Fi, graphics, codecs etc. installed. It did not say,
what those packages are.

Those are important and these two pages have more information about
them:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2234201

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz

Post by Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
"Users of Ubuntu and officially supported derivatives
(Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu) can get support here. Users
of derivatives (such as Backtrack and Linux Mint) are not
officially supported."

I will try not to bother the list again.

Feel free to ask questions here. Even though your operating system
isn't officially supported, you may still be able to get answers.

[Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users]

Post by Little Girl
You might want to try that in a virtual machine, first, to see if you
like it. You'll end up with more menu entries since each has some
programs that the other doesn't and all menu entries will be visible
no matter which desktop you happen to be using.

Hi,

that is a problem that shouldn't exist, if upstream and/or package
maintainers should care about freedesktop.org standards, what they
usually do. There are still issues, even if the desktop files are
edited properly, following freedesktop.org standards.

I don't want to mount Ubuntu, just to provide an example, so here an
Arch Linux desktop file, that most likely is equal to the Ubuntu
desktop file:

[***@archlinux ~]$ tail /usr/share/applications/xfce4-power-manager-settings.desktop Exec=xfce4-power-manager-settings
Icon=xfce4-power-manager-settings
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=XFCE;GTK;Settings;DesktopSettings;X-XFCE-SettingsDialog;X-XFCE-HardwareSettings;
NotShowIn=GNOME;KDE;Unity;
StartupNotify=true
X-XfcePluggable=true
X-XfceHelpComponent=xfce4-power-manager
X-XfceHelpPage=start

The 'NotShowIn' entry is one way to keep menus clean related to the
chosen desktop environment session.

Post by Little Girl

Post by Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
"Users of Ubuntu and officially supported derivatives
(Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu) can get support here. Users of
derivatives (such as Backtrack and Linux Mint) are not officially
supported."

I will try not to bother the list again.

That isn't what I wanted to point out. They aren't "official supported"
and most of us just have got an Ubuntu flavour install, so we might not be
able to help regarding Mint specific issues. Don't hesitate to send a request
to this list.

Regards,
Ralf

[Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users]

Post by Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users

Post by Little Girl
You might want to try that in a virtual machine, first, to see if you
like it. You'll end up with more menu entries since each has some
programs that the other doesn't and all menu entries will be visible
no matter which desktop you happen to be using.

Hi,
that is a problem that shouldn't exist, if upstream and/or package
maintainers should care about freedesktop.org standards, what they
usually do. There are still issues, even if the desktop files are
edited properly, following freedesktop.org standards.
I don't want to mount Ubuntu, just to provide an example, so here an
Arch Linux desktop file, that most likely is equal to the Ubuntu
tail /usr/share/applications/xfce4-power-manager-settings.desktop
Exec=xfce4-power-manager-settings Icon=xfce4-power-manager-settings
Terminal=false Type=Application
Categories=XFCE;GTK;Settings;DesktopSettings;X-XFCE-SettingsDialog;X-XFCE-HardwareSettings;
NotShowIn=GNOME;KDE;Unity;
StartupNotify=true
X-XfcePluggable=true
X-XfceHelpComponent=xfce4-power-manager
X-XfceHelpPage=start
The 'NotShowIn' entry is one way to keep menus clean related to the
chosen desktop environment session.

Post by Little Girl

Post by Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
"Users of Ubuntu and officially supported derivatives
(Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu) can get support here. Users of
derivatives (such as Backtrack and Linux Mint) are not officially
supported."

I will try not to bother the list again.

That isn't what I wanted to point out. They aren't "official supported"
and most of us just have got an Ubuntu flavour install, so we might
not be able to help regarding Mint specific issues. Don't hesitate to
send a request to this list.
Regards,
Ralf

PS: Sure, a GNOME user might want to use a KDE editor or vice versa, so
an editor should be always visible, especially since different
editors could be used in parallel, while using a settings manager, e.g.
for power management can't be used parallel with another manager of that
kind.

[Chris Pollock]

Post by Thomas Blasejewicz
Good morning everyone.
I am trying to use Mint 19, but since this seems to be based on Ubuntu,
someone suggested I may not be thrown out of here right away.
I made (as far as I can tell identical) clean new installations of Mint
19 (formerly used Mint 17.2) on 3 different PCs, all o which are
somewhat older.
The menu editor does work in 2 out of them, including one very old PC,
but not the one here in my office.
When I try to add some "New Item", there is no response to clicking that
button at all.
Other buttons like "Properties" do not work.
When asked whether I would like to add a launcher created on the desktop
also to the menu, this does not work either.
I also installed Alacarte, but the behavior is exactly the same.
Is there a magic trick, some setting anywhere, that can resolve this
"problem"?
It is not really a problem, but used to work under Mint 17.
Thank you.
Thomas

You might try asking your question(s) here

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-mint-84/