The Alacarte menu editor is one of the major additions in GNOME 2.16. Already previously available in Ubuntu and other distributions, Alacarte adds a degree of customization that has been generally lacking since GNOME dropped its previous (proper) menu editor more than five years ago during the early 2.x releases. More on the review at Linux.com.
Alacarte: GNOME’s Long Overdue (Proper) Menu Editor
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But I can’t believe Gnome hasn’t had this for a while now. As an Ubuntu user I just assumed it was already in Gnome by default. Have users of other distros been editing files in /usr/share/applications all this time? Or maybe other distros included Alacarte as well?
Also I think the older menu editor was dropped five releases ago, not five years ago as the article says.
Have users of other distros been editing files in /usr/share/applications all this time?
Hope you’re sitting down, this may frighten and shock you but… Some of us actually prefer it!
I am even weirder than you. Sometimes I like hand editing config files, sometimes I like a GUI. It depends on the nature of the task I am doing. Bigger point: Having a choice of whether to use the editor or had edit the config files is even better than either way.
I am even weirder than you.
I don’t think you have enough information to make that judgement call.
Hope you’re sitting down, this may frighten and shock you but… Some of us actually prefer it!
I didn’t mind doing it from the command line so much myself, but this being the ‘make everything easy and don’t confuse anyone’ desktop that Gnome is, you’d think they’d have done something about this awhile ago.
I’ve always wondered why they didn’t copy the old method of a series of directories and links where the user creates and modifies it completely ad hoc using, dragon droppings, modifying already familiar primitive objects. Runtime too slow take that finished directory structure as an intermediate and generate some other format to read… it’s still good.
Users of other distros don’t use Gnome. If Ubuntu, which accounts for around 30% of Gnome market share, didn’t exist, then Gnome would be down to next to no user base.
In other words, Ubuntu is responsible for bringing Gnome from its ashes.
In case you’re curious, yes, I’m a Gnome hater and proud of it!
And I registered, finally, just to post this
if it weren’t slow as molasses. I mean, FFS, a second or two of delay when typing on a 2.6 GHz CPU with 512M of RAM?! I guess it’s written in Python, but not all Python apps demonstrate this behavior.
It takes a long time to initially read the menu items, yes. And it doesn’t cache them, so each time you restart it, you will have to wait again for it.
Well if the delay only were after the startup, it would be tolerable. The problem is, for me it’s like that all the time 🙁 Or do you mean that reading the menu can take several minutes? But then it isn’t normal, either…
I never had to edit my gnome menu. Is this something users do often? When do you need a menu editor? When you want to add a self compiled application I guess?
Yeah, I’ve never had to edit my menus either. On the list of the things needed for the GNOME desktop, this was at the bottom of my list.
I often customize my menus, but mostly to remove unneeded entries from there. For example, why would I want to have an entry for Bug Buddy there when I never actually use it? I don’t even know what to exactly use it for, except for situations when an app crashes, Bug Buddy pops up to annoy me. I haven’t had to add any new entries, though. Just removing all the unnecessary clutter is enough for me. Oh, I did modify the beagle launcher to make beagle do a tray icon. By default it didn’t, which IMHO is stupid. Anyway, a menu editor is a good thing to have. Even Windows 95 had it…
If you happen to install something outside of your distributions default package manager, usually the only way to get it into the menu is through the use of a menu-editor, if you install through apt-get or a series of scripts, automatix for example, they usually take care of all of this in the background.
Or when your package system doesn’t add entries by itself. Happened to me a few times with Ubuntu 5.10 and 6.06
Why is this even needed? Why can’t I just move/add/delete/rename menu items directly from the menu? Why do I have to launch a separate “sluggish” program just to make the simplest changes to my menus?
IMO, Alacarte isn’t there yet. Not only is it slow, but editing your menu should be as simple as clicking on the menu entry and selecting “properties” with the option to rename, change paths, remove from menu, move to another subfolder, change icon, etc. Not having to fire up a whole other application which then loads all your menu entries again, at which time you have to again find the menu item you were interested in.
Adding/removing/editng Gnome menu items should be as simple as adding/removing/editing Gnome panel items. Why not use the same procedure for both? This is one area where I feel Gnome just hasn’t got it right yet.
I see very litle reason to edit the menu. I think I may have once edited the menu using some new toy software from gnome-files, but the novelty of it quickly diminished. The menu in Gnome isn’t like the start menu in Windows–it doesn’t get cluttered like mad.
So I wonder why so many people want to be able to edit the menu so badly?
So I wonder why so many people want to be able to edit the menu so badly?
Curiosity, mostly. Everybody knows how in Windows. I first thought it couldn’t be done in Linux. It took me years to stumble across fd.o and see how it’s done – and even longer to install Ubuntu and see Alacarte…
I have had problems with the latest release of Gnome with it dieing and restarting. The menu is the least of the worries for Gnome, I wish they would focus on stability and getting the bugs worked out.
The menu is getting a lot of attention in which I do not feel it needs.
Well, usually what happens with a new Gnome release is that at x.x.0 it is a feature release, then you have x.x.1, x.x.2, etc. Those are bug fix releases. For example, in Debian Sid, the current Gnome release is 2.14.3. Which is more than likely the last of the 2.14.x versions to be released, but it’s very stable. Hopefully 2.16.1 will be out and packaged for Etch before it’s final release in December.
I’m sure Ubuntu and hopefully other distributions will have the 2.16.x releases as well, and not just sit at 2.16.0.
I have had problems with the latest release of Gnome with it dieing and restarting. The menu is the least of the worries for Gnome, I wish they would focus on stability and getting the bugs worked out.
What system are you using? How are you measuring performance?
The menu is getting a lot of attention in which I do not feel it needs.
By the press, absolutely.