<SOLVED> K-menu organizer broken?

[tomcloyd]

I'm having trouble finding consensus terms for the functionality I'm concerned with, so I'll do my best to describe it: A R-click on the K-menu button leads to a popup menu with 3 options, the first of which reads "edit applications". This is the system function I'm having a peculiar problem with. It looks like a bug, but I'm not seeing it discussed elsewhere, so it must be something else...

What it really does is allow one (supposedly) to edit the K-menu. It's always worked for me, until recently.

Now, what it does is semi-randomly scramble the K-menu, when I try to reorganize it. The result is ranges from barely usable to not-usable.

Here is the k-menu as I have set it up:
[img width=388 height=400]http://www.tomcloyd.com/misc/kmenu-setup-b.png[/img]

Note that "Office" is the first item, and note that it has 17 items listed before the separator lines.

At this point i save my work and exit. Then, opening the kmenu I see something far different than I asked for. Returning to the kmenu organizer, I now see this, which at least partially accounts for the dysfunctionality of the kmenu:
[img width=400 height=394]http://www.tomcloyd.com/misc/kmenu-setup-result-b.png[/img]

Folders have been created i didn't ask for. Item order is changed. Items explicitly present are now explicitly absent (but will be found inside other folders).

This is nuts. Can anyone tell me:

1. How to get this menu organizer functionality to return to just work; and
2. how this problem came abut so that I can act to prevent it?

THANKS for any help!!!

[Teunis]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

Comparing your examples to my system make it clear yours is not sorted alphabetically.
But then I see all kinds of junk appearing in your second screen shot...

I've gone through the manual but haven't found a clue where this configuration is saved.

I do know your K-menu is the 'classic' menu plasma widget, you could remove this one, use to one of the others like Lancelot and revert back to see if the troublesome configuration has been overwritten.

Is this a fresh install or did this 'suddenly' break?

[tomcloyd]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

Comparing your examples to my system make it clear yours is not sorted alphabetically.
But then I see all kinds of junk appearing in your second screen shot...

Yes...clearly two problems, and not necessarily related. I delete the junk and set things right, then it regresses to disaster, and in a different way each time. I cannot figure out the pattern.

I've gone through the manual but haven't found a clue where this configuration is saved.

Baffled me, too.

I do know your K-menu is the 'classic' menu plasma widget, you could remove this one, use to one of the others like Lancelot and revert back to see if the troublesome configuration has been overwritten.

OK, that's a worthy idea. Will definitely try it.

Is this a fresh install or did this 'suddenly' break?

It's only just cropped up. And the problem may well have been latent for a while, only manifesting when I edited the menu. Have been way to busy lately to be able to pinpoint exactly when it occurred. But it seems to be much aggravated with I changed the basic order of root folders in the menu - moving Office, for example, to the top, etc. All hell broke lose at that point!

[Teunis]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

There might be a 'Sledge Hammer' solution by renaming the ~/.kde folder. :P
On next startup a new and default .kde will be created, hopefully without the issue.
When this breaks too many other customisations you can always put back the original.

[tomcloyd]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

...I do know your K-menu is the 'classic' menu plasma widget, you could remove this one, use to one of the others like Lancelot and revert back to see if the troublesome configuration has been overwritten

There ARE no others that I could find. I search for "Lancelot" (have never heard of it) via Google, and found only a rats nest of PPAs where "Lancelot" could not be found. Very puzzling. Can you give me some clues?

I did remove the "menu plasma widget", but then couldn't see how to shut things down, as I assumed I needed to do at that point (I'm no command line whiz). So I put it back, and the problem remained.

I really need a fix. Guess I'll try renaming /.kde.

[tomcloyd]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

There might be a 'Sledge Hammer' solution by renaming the ~/.kde folder. :P
On next startup a new and default .kde will be created, hopefully without the issue.
When this breaks too many other customisations you can always put back the original.

In desperation, I just tried this. Didn't work. I lost all my system customizations, and the menu still scrambles itself every time I try to correct the mess. /office keeps disappearing into one of the folders, and often a new "/office-x" (x = some small number) is created, with SOME of the original /office's contents in it. I delete this, and rearrange things, save it, then check the menu, and the problem reappears in some permutation.

I just did the linux kernal update (there were about 32 updated packages on my box), and it made no difference.

I'm reverting to the old /.kde, as it at least has my OS customizations.

ANYONE have any idea my my K-menu is acting to crazy? It's basically unusable now, except for the search function, which does allow me to find some application I cannot otherwise find in the menu. Just plain nuts...

[Teunis]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

Put these three words in a search engine and you will find

kubuntu lancelot widget

When I check the package manager I find the plasma-lancelot-widget.
After installation it is in the list with optional widget that can be installed on the desktop or task bar.

About the .kde thing, yes it was a wide shot but so many configurations are stored in this place it could have been this one too.

[tomcloyd]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

Thanks! I got it. I did search previously with those terms, except I used Ubuntu rather than Kubuntu. In retrospect, that's clearly an error, and doomed me. This time, I still didn't see where to get the widget, but had neglected to look in the packages. With your help, I got it.

Lovely widget, I have to say. I like its look and responsiveness. Regrettably, it doesn't fix the problem at all, which now leads me to think that there just might be a bug in the menu editor. I'm not up to speed on reporting bugs, but I'll give it a try.

Thanks for sticking with me on this one.

[abalone]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

This occasionally happens to me, too. The relevant directories don't seem to be in ~/.kde/. These three seem work for resetting the menu to defaults: ~/.config/menus/ (for the menu structure), and ~/.local/share/applications/ and ~/.local/share/desktop-directories/ (for the *.desktop files representing the actual menu entries).

[Worzel]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

My 'limited' understanding is that the 'edit menu' option has little or nothing to do with the layout of menus.

This all comes under /etc/xdg/ where categories etc are specified and then *.desktop files (ie the prg menu entries) are placed in them based on their stated categories.
Possibly more info at http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/...op-menu.1.html
or google for 'xdg desktop menu'

HTH
Jim

[tomcloyd]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

Ablone, Worzel,

Thanks for your detailed replies. Sadly, I cannot use them. I cannot grasp the concept of an 'edit menu' functionality, gotten to from the launch menu, which has nothing to do with editing that menu. That's nonsense, even if it's true.

As for plowing into 3 separate text files (I looked at one, and it must have had a couple hundred lines in it), their documentation, and interactions...you have to be kidding. That a system programmers job. I'm a user, and I have my hands full just trying to get stuff done with existing application programs. I don't have time to personally maintain my OS, beyond the rather simple and trivial. Just a reality, I'm afraid.

So...I'll have to live with a broken menu system, and use the Lancelot/kMenu search functionality to locate about half the programs I launch. It's simply the quickest path to getting my work done, and THAT I must do.

My netbook, also running Kubuntu, just got wireless back, after almost 3 months of not working. Another broken thing that keeps breaking, almost every OS version. Don't know what to think about all this. Don't expect another distro to work much better, and I like KB, so I'll stick for now.

[abalone]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

@tomcloyd~ You don't have to edit those crazy files! If you simply delete them, or at least the stuff in .config/menus, the menu should be reset to a default state (and be editable again).

The menu editor does, well, edit the menu (when it's still working). Both the new-style Application Launcher widget and the old-fashioned menu-style launcher use this menu (as I suspect does Lancelot, but I don't have it installed). No?

[tomcloyd]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

Ahhhhhhh. Best news I've read all day, and it's been nighttime for hours.

Well. Reset. I can do this. I can certainly delete a file. I done it many times, sometimes without knowing it. Yeah. Sigh. Will go try it.

Thanks for the update!

[tomcloyd]

Re: K-menu organizer broken?

abalone - finally got back to this. It's been making me crazy for weeks, and continued onto a whole new OS reload (but then I keep my user data in a separate partition, so no real surprise there).

Following your advice, and just deleting the files you suggested, resulted in a stable menu system, finally. Unreal. Thanks so much for your help.