How can I edit my menu in WindowMaker?

[exploder]

I can not edit my menu in Windowmaker. I can not even find a menu file that has anything in it other than "system hook". If I try and use WPrefs I get a warning that says, "the menu file format currently in use is not supported by this tool. Do you want to discard the current menu to use this tool?" If I discard the menu it destroys the menu and I have to re-install WindowMaker to get my menu back.

Has anyone else gotten past this problem? I can configure the launcher to run any program I want but I would really like to edit my menu.

I had similar problems with Fluxbox but found the menu the system was reading in /etcx11/fluxbox,
no such luck with WindowMaker. I have read all the documentation on the WindowMaker site.
http://www.windowmaker.info/faq.php?chapter=3

Can somebody help me edit the menu?

[kernst]

Re: How can I edit my menu in WindowMaker?

It's been a while since I wrestled this one (and on a Debian Woody/Sarge system at that), so bear with me...

The default WindowMaker root menu is generated dynamically (i.e., items are added/removed as you add/remove software packages) by the "update-menus" command provided by either the "menu" or "menu-xdg" package in Debian and Ubuntu. It seems no one has updated the menu/update-menus tools to use the new "proplist" WindowMaker menu format (the format WPrefs.app/wmakerconf force you to use). An example of what the old style menus look like is /usr/share/WindowMaker/menu; an example of the new menu style is attached to this message (my personal menus, from $HOME/GNUstep/Defaults/WMRootMenu). I've been using WindowMaker for so long that I can't remember if I found an example of a "proplist" menu to build on, or if I just started from scratch.

So... You have a few choices here: (1) go ahead and let wmakerconf or WPrefs.app convert your menu to the new "proplist" style and build a new one from scratch; (2) let the "menu" package and "update-menus" build your (old-style) menus automatically (but you can't edit these to your liking); or (3) compromise between (1) and (2) by doing (1), then adding the following lines somewhere in your $HOME/GNUstep/Defaults/WMRootMenu:

("Ubuntu menu", OPEN_MENU, menu.hook),

(Don't forget the comma at the end because the proplist-style menu entries are all comma-separated.) What this does is creates a submenu that contains the menu items dynamically generated by "update-menus." I've found it's a good compromise, since your "customized" menu is probably only going to have a handful of applications in it anyway; anything else you might need will be in the "Ubuntu menu" and will automatically be kept up-to-date as you add new packages.

The "magic" behind update-menus has something to do with the /etc/X11/WindowMaker "menu.hook" and related files, in case you get really curious.

Hope this helps.

--Kevin

[niaz444]

How can I edit my menu in WindowMaker


how i edit I can not even find a menu file that has anything in it other

please help