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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">

<html>

<head>

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

<title>Debian Menu System - Introduction</title>

<link href="index.html" rel="start">
<link href="index.html" rel="prev">
<link href="ch2.html" rel="next">
<link href="index.html#contents" rel="contents">
<link href="index.html#copyright" rel="copyright">
<link href="ch1.html" rel="chapter" title="1 Introduction">
<link href="ch2.html" rel="chapter" title="2 Menu from the viewpoint of a user">
<link href="ch3.html" rel="chapter" title="3 The menu file">
<link href="ch4.html" rel="chapter" title="4 What packages with applications should do">
<link href="ch5.html" rel="chapter" title="5 What packages with menu managers should do">
<link href="ch6.html" rel="chapter" title="6 How a user can override the menus">
<link href="ch7.html" rel="chapter" title="7 The internals of the menu package">
<link href="ch8.html" rel="chapter" title="8 Variables and functions in the install-menu scripts">
<link href="ch2.html#s2.1" rel="section" title="2.1 How/when do the window manager startup files get created?">
<link href="ch2.html#s2.2" rel="section" title="2.2 Tuning of the generated window manager startup files">
<link href="ch2.html#s2.3" rel="section" title="2.3 Optimization of menu tree: hints">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.1" rel="section" title="3.1 Location">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.2" rel="section" title="3.2 Syntax">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.3" rel="section" title="3.3 The title field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.4" rel="section" title="3.4 The needs field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.5" rel="section" title="3.5 The section field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.6" rel="section" title="3.6 The command field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.7" rel="section" title="3.7 The icon field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.8" rel="section" title="3.8 The hints field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.9" rel="section" title="3.9 Entries for menu sections.">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.10" rel="section" title="3.10 Fvwm's task and title bars">
<link href="ch4.html#s4.1" rel="section" title="4.1 Providing a menu file">
<link href="ch4.html#s4.2" rel="section" title="4.2 Adding a hook for dpkg in your packages">
<link href="ch6.html#s6.1" rel="section" title="6.1 Configuring the menus">
<link href="ch6.html#s6.2" rel="section" title="6.2 Specifying that a menu entry should not be displayed">
<link href="ch6.html#s6.3" rel="section" title="6.3 Including other files">
<link href="ch7.html#s7.1" rel="section" title="7.1 The update-menus program">
<link href="ch7.html#s7.2" rel="section" title="7.2 The install-menu program">
<link href="ch7.html#s7.3" rel="section" title="7.3 The install-menu config script definitions">
<link href="ch7.html#s7.4" rel="section" title="7.4 Hints, tree optimization">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.1" rel="section" title="8.1 String constants">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.2" rel="section" title="8.2 Variables">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.3" rel="section" title="8.3 Functions">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.2.1" rel="subsection" title="8.2.1 Special variables">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.2.2" rel="subsection" title="8.2.2 Preferred variables">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.2.3" rel="subsection" title="8.2.3 Suggested variables">

</head>

<body>

<p><a name="ch1"></a></p>
<hr>

<p>
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</p>

<hr>

<h1>
Debian Menu System
<br>Chapter 1 - Introduction
</h1>

<hr>

<p>
Before the advent of <code>update-menus</code>, when the sysadmin installed a
package onto a Debian system, they would need to edit various window manager
config files to make the new program show up on, for example,
<code>fvwm</code>'s menus.  The menus could easily become out of sync with what
programs were actually available, with some menu items that didn't work, and
other programs that lacked a menu entry.  update-menus and Debian's menu
package aim to solve this problem.
</p>

<p>
<code>update-menus</code> automatically generates menus of installed programs
for window managers and other menu programs.  It should be run whenever a menu
file or menu-method file is changed.  <code>update-menus</code> will be ran
automatically when Debian packages that contain menu files are installed or
removed from the system.  Users themselves can add/delete menu items, and
should then run <code>update-menus</code> as that user, thus creating
window-manager startup files that are used in preference to the systemwide
files.
</p>

<p>
One problem we ran into with menu-1.x (and before) was that the number of
entries in any submenu vary wildly: on my system there are only two entries in
<samp>/Applications/Editors</samp>, while I'm sure that other people have more
like 20 entries there.  Many people complained about the fullness of certain
submenus, citing scientific studies or personal experience to explain why
overfull or underfull submenus are a bad thing.  To overcome this, menu-2.0 now
can optimize the tree itself, possibly subdividing for example the
<samp>/Applications/Editors</samp> tree in, say <samp>Editors/Beginner</samp>,
<samp>Editors/Experienced</samp>, or whatever, if there are many entries in
that submenu, or maybe even totally removing <samp>/Applications/Editors</samp>
on systems where there are few editors installed.  To be able to do this, menu
follows the information supplied to it in the `hints' variables (see paragraph
below, or the hints chapter).
</p>

<p>
Each package that needs to add an entry to the menu tree, includes a menu file
<code>/usr/share/menu/package-name</code>.  In this file, it will have one line
per menu entry, like this (copied from <code>/usr/share/menu/xbase</code>):
</p>

<pre>
        ?package(xbase):command=&quot;/usr/bin/xedit&quot; needs=&quot;X11&quot; \
                     section=&quot;Applications/Editors&quot; title=&quot;Xedit&quot; \
                     hints=&quot;Beginner,Small&quot;
</pre>

<p>
This describes the type of interface Xedit needs (X11), the menu section the
menu entry should be in, the menu text, and the command that should be
executed.  Also, it tells menu that, if <samp>/Applications/Editors</samp> is
overfull, it could put Xedit in a <samp>Applications/Editors/Beginner</samp> or
<samp>Applications/Editors/Small</samp> subsection.
</p>

<p>
Whenever <samp>root</samp> runs <code>update-menus</code>, it will check all
menu files in <code>/etc/menu</code>, <code>/usr/lib/menu</code>,
<code>/usr/share/menu</code>, and run the installation scripts that display
managers like <code>fvwm2</code> should provide in
<code>/etc/menu-methods</code>.
</p>

<p>
The menu package itself provides a set of default menu files, for people to get
the idea, and to speed up things a bit.  (These files should be incorporated
into the package.)
</p>

<p>
Note, that substantial and incompatible changes took place with the menu-1.0
release, while substantial features were added by the release of menu-2.0.
This document describes menu-2.0.  Menu-2.0 now doesn't accept the menu-methods
written for menu-0.x, but for most window managers that still have those old
menu-methods, I have put new style menu-methods in
/usr/share/doc/menu/examples.  Everything written for menu-1.0 will work with
menu-2.0.
</p>

<p>
Most notable changes between menu-0.x and menu-1.x are listed in the file
README.changes in the menu package, the features added by menu-2.0 can be
summarised here: hints, and the menu-2 compat mode.  (where lines are finished
by a ';' instead of a newline).
</p>

<hr>

<p>
[ <a href="index.html">previous</a> ]
[ <a href="index.html#contents">Contents</a> ]
[ 1 ]
[ <a href="ch2.html">2</a> ]
[ <a href="ch3.html">3</a> ]
[ <a href="ch4.html">4</a> ]
[ <a href="ch5.html">5</a> ]
[ <a href="ch6.html">6</a> ]
[ <a href="ch7.html">7</a> ]
[ <a href="ch8.html">8</a> ]
[ <a href="ch2.html">next</a> ]
</p>

<hr>

<p>
Debian Menu System
</p>

<address>
version 1.4, 10 November 2011<br>
<br>
Joost Witteveen <code><a href="mailto:joostje@debian.org">joostje@debian.org</a></code><br>
Joey Hess <code><a href="mailto:joeyh@debian.org">joeyh@debian.org</a></code><br>
Christian Schwarz <code><a href="mailto:schwarz@debian.org">schwarz@debian.org</a></code><br>
Bill Allombert <code><a href="mailto:ballombe@debian.org">ballombe@debian.org</a></code><br>
<br>
</address>
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