Resumo
In
order to help you manage the main menu of your preferred graphical
interface, Mandriva Linux provides you with a menu editor which
ensures menus from all desktop environments (such as KDE or
GNOME) are coherent.
This tool allows system administrators to control the menus for all users (the system menu) but can also be utilized by users to personalize their own menus. You can launch MenuDrake from the Mandriva Linux Control Center or from the + + → menu entry.
If started by root
,
MenuDrake can be used in two different modes: either changing
menus for all users, or customizing the menus for user root
. You
will be able to switch from within the application thereafter, but for
now, click on:
When you launch MenuDrake, it first scans your current menu structure and displays it. The main window (see Figura 5.2, “MenuDrake's Main Window”) is divided in two parts: the menu itself on the left, and a form relative to the highlighted menu item on the right.
You can click on the tree's [+] signs to view the content of the related sub-menus, and on [-] to hide them.
This should seldom happen as all Mandriva Linux graphical applications should provide a menu entry. However if you want to add a menu entry for a package you compiled yourself, or for a console mode program, use this function. Let's suppose you want to run the top command in a terminal window to view running processes and the utilization of system resources through a menu entry in the → menu.
Select the → entry, and click on the tool bar's button. A dialog will appear asking you for the title of the menu entry and the command associated with it.
Edit the title (you
could insert “Table Of Processes”) to be shown in the
menu. Then you need to provide the action the system should
execute in the Command field:
top
. Click on and
the entry will be added to the menu tree.
You can also choose an icon for your entry from the list which appears once you click the icon button itself. The new entry is shown in Figura 5.4, “A New Menu Entry with MenuDrake”. Do not forget to check the Open in a terminal box to have the program run in a terminal window.
Finally to activate your modifications, click on the button and that's it. Congratulations! You can now test your new settings by accessing the main menu.
Depending on the experience the users working with your machine have, you may want to provide them with different menu styles. Mandriva Linux provides a few template menus which you can eventually customize. They are available through the main window's button.
Choose one of the available options:
Use system administrator settings. If you started MenuDrake as a simple user, you can choose to set your personal menu style to use the menus prepared by the system's administrator.
All applications. This is the traditional menu shipped with Mandriva Linux and it contains nearly all the available applications, sorted into functional categories.
What to do? Specifically designed by our ergonomics team, this menu provides a fast access to most common applications sorted by usage, such as , , etc.
Original menu. These are the plain menus as provided by the KDE or GNOME desktops. This menu probably lacks some applications.
When you have chosen a menu style, click on . You will then be able to see the corresponding menu structure in the main window, and you can then customize it.
The entry we have just added to the menu is now available in the active graphical manager menu. It is also possible to make modifications to all graphical manager menus by choosing → .
All entries which only apply to the active graphical environment appear in blue in the tree structure on the left.
MenuDrake entries support the drag-and-drop feature. Similarly, you may have noticed that whenever you remove an application from the menu, it appears in the “attic”, that is the Available applications list on the bottom right corner. If you ever wish to add them again, you simply have to drag them to the desired place in the menu tree.