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<title>Debian Menu System - How a user can override the menus</title>

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<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">

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<h1>
Debian Menu System
<br>Chapter 6 - How a user can override the menus
</h1>

<hr>

<hr>

<h2><a name="s6.1"></a>6.1 Configuring the menus</h2>

<p>
Users can specify their own menu entries in the <code>~/.menu</code> directory.
The files can have an arbitrary file name as long as the new syntax for the
menu entries is used.  They should start with either
</p>

<pre>
       ?package(installed-package):
</pre>

<p>
or
</p>

<pre>
       ?package(local.mystuff):
</pre>

<p>
if it's something that isn't ``debian-officially'' installed.  (Any ``package''
that starts with ``<samp>local.</samp>'' is considered installed.)
</p>

<p>
If users want to have their own menu methods, they should create a
<code>~/.menu-methods</code> directory and put all their menu methods in it.
(If <code>~/.menu-methods</code> exists, <code>/etc/menu-methods</code> will
not be searched when a user runs <code>update-menus</code>).
</p>

<p>
A system administrator should place system-wide menu entries in
<code>/etc/menu</code> (not in <code>/usr/share/menu/package</code>, since
these files will probably be overwritten by a package upgrade).
</p>

<hr>

<h2><a name="s6.2"></a>6.2 Specifying that a menu entry should not be displayed</h2>

<p>
If a user wants to remove the entries of <samp>package</samp> from the system
menu then this will do the trick:
</p>

<pre>
       echo -n  &gt; ~/.menu/package
</pre>

<p>
The zero-size file will tell <code>update-menus</code> that the corresponding
package should not have any menu entries listed.  A system administrator can
remove menu entries system-wide with
</p>

<pre>
       echo -n  &gt; /etc/menu/package
</pre>

<hr>

<h2><a name="s6.3"></a>6.3 Including other files</h2>

<p>
<var>Historical comment by Joost:</var>
</p>

<p>
<var>More out of curiosity than anything else, I recently read the KDE mailing
list.  In it I saw some discussion about how good the Debian menu system is
(whow, thanks, guys!), but one person found a missing feature: s/he said you
couldn't include other files in the user menu files.  Well, actually, it was
already possible, but not very well documented.</var>
</p>

<p>
To include the contents of the file <code>/usr/share/menu/somefile</code>, add
this to your menu file:
</p>

<pre>
     !include /usr/share/menu/somefile
</pre>

<p>
Apart from that, it is of course possible to make the menu entry file
executable (<samp>chmod a+x ~/.menu/package</samp>), and do something like
</p>

<pre>
     #!/bin/sh
     cat  /usr/share/menu/somefile
     sed -e  &quot;/unwanted_entry/s/?package(/?package(notinstalled./&quot; \
          /usr/share/menu/someotherfile
</pre>

<p>
to get the same effect, with the added flexibility of being able to filter out
unwanted lines.
</p>

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<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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