lost (mac-) menu bar [solved]

[geralds]

Just yesterday I upgraded form Kubuntu 8.04 to 8.10 (64 bit). In KDE 3 I had the mac style menu bar activated (this removed the menu of KDE application windows and put it on the top of the desktop). After the upgrade I don't have any menu anymore (neither in the window nor on top of the screen. Plasmoid-xbar doesn't seem to work.
Using eg [Alt]+[f] I could access the menu in very few applications (comes out of an invislible menu at the top of the screen), though for most it is entirely unavailable. Was digging around a bit in .kde, but couldn't find the corresponding setting yet (neither in the kde settings menu). Would be happy about any help (I don't need the menu to be on top of the screen, I just need any menu that works)! Thanks, Gerald

[Nate]

Re: lost menu bar

I think if you right-click your desktop and make sure your desktop is unlocked, you can click on Add Applets. When the box comes up look for the taskbar applet and remove it (click the minus sign, I believe)...After that you can follow the same procedure to add the taskbar applet again. Unfortunately I can't check if what I'm saying is true or not.

[geralds]

Re: lost menu bar

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a taskbar applet in the 'add widgets' dialog; the widget that should do the job is called XBar, but it doesn't start (and is not started). There is a very thin gray line on top of the screen, maybe an artifact of the taskbar that should be there.
Still hoping for a hint that helps solving this problem, Gerald

[aged hippy]

Re: lost menu bar

Look for a Task Manager in Add Widgets.

[geralds]

Re: lost menu bar

Now I know what you are talking about. I'm not missing the task manager, it's nicely included in the bottom panel. I'm missing the applications' menu bars (File | Edit | View | ... | Help). They are normally in the applications windows, but in KDE3 I detached them to be on the top of the screen like in the mac. This top of the screen bar is now gone, but there seems to be a setting that still disables the menu in all KDE applications - and I believe that's what I'm after. Thanks for your hint though!

[aged hippy]

Re: lost menu bar

If an application isn't showing it's Menu bar, <Ctrl>+M will bring it back from wherever it's lurking....

Edit:
I've no idea what you mean with the "but in KDE3 I detached them to be on the top of the screen like in the mac" reference, though.

[geralds]

Re: lost menu bar

Thanks for trying to help me, but even [Ctrl]+[m] doesn't bring the menu bars back to my kde programs. Maybe this screenshot helps you understand where my menu bar used to reside in KDE 3.5.x:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KDE_Global_menu.png
(look on the top of the screen and the top of the windows). The one I was using was purely a copy of the menu bar of the current window, nothing else in there. I remember that I enabled this somewhere in the system settings, but the option seems to be gone with the top menu bar itself. Alas, I didn't get my in-window menus back in place

[aged hippy]

Re: lost menu bar

You mean the icon for the Menu? You need System Settings ->Appearance ->Windows and select the Button tab, then drag the icon it to wherever you want it.

[geralds]

Re: lost menu bar

Nope, alas not. I already went through the settings a couple of times and could't find the necessary switch. I didn't have any icons in my apple style menu bar and don't need any. I just had the menu entries of the current window in there - something like
File | Edit | View | ...
iirc it wasn't possible to add anything, but I didn't even try. Again - the issue is that none of my windows has a menu bar anymore, so all are lacking the file menu, the edit menu etc. There might be a setting in ~/.kde/share/config that reenables these menus, but so far, I couldn't find any and am very thankful for any hints.

[aged hippy]

Re: lost menu bar

Well, sorry i couldn't be of more assistance.

[geralds]

Re: lost (mac-) menu bar [solved]

Finally found the solution:
nano ~/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals
go to the [KDE] section and change the macStyle option to false (macStyle=false)
Upon the next login, the menus are back in the windows. Thanks to all who tried to help!

[aged hippy]

Re: lost (mac-) menu bar [solved]

Well done.

Would you mind editing the topic name to say Solved so that others with the problem can do the same thing?