Editing the Desktop Menu

Documentation / Contents - Menu & Shortcuts

• Overview of Menu & Shortcuts
  • Two Pages, Two Files
  • Who Is In Charge
• Editing the Desktop Menu
  • Reading the Tree
  • Changing a Label or a Command
  • Adding Items, Submenus and Separators
  • Deleting and Reordering
  • Reload File
• Editing Shortcuts
  • The Action List
  • The Inspector
• Setting a Shortcut
  • Arming the Capture
  • When a Chord Is Already Taken
  • Clear and Reset Default
  • Reset All Defaults
• The Action Catalog
  • Window
  • Desktop
  • Tiling
  • Session
  • Launchers
• Where the Settings Live
  • The Shortcuts File
  • The Menu File
  • The Legacy Keys File
• The Status Line
• Keys and Shortcuts in the Editor
• Copyright Information

Editing the Desktop Menu

The Desktop Menu page edits ~/.cyanotype/menu, the menu that appears when you press the third mouse button on the desktop background. The same menu is posted by the "Desktop menu navigator" shortcut, and the wallpaper panel can point at it.

The page has a tree on the left, a small form on the right, and a row of buttons along the bottom.

Reading the Tree

Each row in the tree is one entry in the menu. The leading characters tell you what kind it is.

+ Applications      a submenu; contents indented under it
  Terminal {xterm}  a command; two spaces per level
---                 a separator line
* Heading           a label; does nothing when picked

A command row shows its label followed by the command in braces, so you can read the whole menu without selecting anything.

Changing a Label or a Command

Select a row. The form on the right fills in:

Type:       Command, Submenu, Separator or Label
Label:      the text that appears in the menu
Command:    the shell command a Command row runs

Edit either field and the change is committed when you press Enter, or when you move the focus out of the field. There is no separate Apply. The tree row updates and the file is written.

A separator has no label and no command; a label has no command.

Adding Items, Submenus and Separators

Three buttons add rows, and each adds after the current selection:

Add Item         a new command row
Add Submenu      a new submenu, ready to be filled
Add Separator    a horizontal rule

A new row is added at the level of the selection. To put an item inside a submenu, select something already inside that submenu first.

Deleting and Reordering

Delete    remove the selected row
Up        move it earlier among its siblings
Down      move it later

Delete asks before it acts, because deleting a submenu takes everything inside it. Up and Down move a row within its own level; they do not move a row into or out of a submenu.

Every one of these writes the file and asks the window manager to reload, so the desktop menu changes under you as you work. Press the third mouse button on the desktop to see it.

Reload File

Reload File throws away what is on screen and reads ~/.cyanotype/menu again from disk. Use it if you have edited the file by hand in another window, or if you have made a mess and the file on disk is the version you want. Local edits are discarded, and the status line says so.

See Where the Settings Live for the file's format.