Peppermint OS: making sense of the menu editor

I wanted to add a new category to the Peppermint menu.

I normally do this the hard way, by hacking files.

But its high time I that I got to grips with the menu editor.

I've got quite use to hacking menu and .desktop files to create new menu categories and new application launchers in the 12+ years since switching from Windows to Linux. I recently added new menu categories on my Peppermint 10 using this approach, but then decided it was high time that I mastered the menu editor. Turns out to be really simple.

The Linux Peppermint OS uses the Whisper menu which may be modified via the MenuLibre editor. The layout of this editor seems to change with every new Peppermint release, so this post relates to MenuLibre 2.2.0 on Peppermint 10.

add a new category

Note: your icons may look different from mine, depending upon which theme you are using.

Go to Menu > Settings > Menu Editor

 

Click on the + icon in the top menu bar and select Add Directory

 

Double click New Directory and over-write with the name of this new menu category (e.g. Finance)

 

Likewise, double click then over-write the description.

 

Click on the icon to select a suitable icon.

Click on the Save Launcher button

add a new application

Click on Finance, then select Add Launcher via + icon

As before, select a new icon, change the name and descriptive blurb

 

For this application I simply want to open a spreadsheet in Calc, so I add a suitable command line and working directory.

to move existing menu items

I can now move my existing applications in Finance by just selecting them and using the up or down arrow.

 

removing duplicates

If you find you have the same application listed more than once (e.g. LibreCAD in both the Graphics and the Education menu categories) DO NOT delete one of them from the menu tree structure. This will delete both menu entries.

Just highlight the menu entry (launcher), and in the right pane select Categories, highlight the Category Name in the list that you no longer want, and then click the remove button with the - icon at the bottom.

conclusion

Having an easy way to create and delete menu categories gives you a chance to tailor your system more closely to meet your needs.

My Internet category had become a catch-all for my SSBs (single/specific site browsers) which I can now move to more logical categories. And meaningless categories (to me at least) like Education can now be removed, moving the applications to more meaningful menu locations.