I just noticed something and am curious about it.
Most desktops create a .menu file, which lives in the /etc/xdg/menus directory (sadly often after the desktop itself is long gone). But I do not see one for TDE, unless it has some unexpected name.
Where does TDE put its menu?
On 2025-08-10 02:37:53 deloptes via tde-users wrote:
Thierry de Coulon via tde-users wrote:
/opt/trinity/share/apps/kdesktop/
/opt/trinity/share/applications/tde/
But I don't find non-TDE things like KeepassXC in there, though it's in Utilities.
Leslie
said J Leslie Turriff via tde-users: | On 2025-08-10 02:37:53 deloptes via tde-users wrote: | > Thierry de Coulon via tde-users wrote: | > > /opt/trinity/share/apps/kdesktop/ | > | > /opt/trinity/share/applications/tde/ | | But I don't find non-TDE things like KeepassXC in there, though it's in | Utilities.
Precisely. And there are many applicatins there that I do not have in my kmenu. I'm more and more thinking that there is not an actual kmenu file but instead a description of one someplace, and it is created each time TDE is started. Or something.
said deloptes via tde-users: | Thierry de Coulon via tde-users wrote: | > /opt/trinity/share/apps/kdesktop/ | | /opt/trinity/share/applications/tde/
That's where the *,desktop files are located. I was wondering if the menu itself, with submenus and all, is a file located somewhere.
dep via tde-users wrote:
That's where the *,desktop files are located. I was wondering if the menu itself, with submenus and all, is a file located somewhere.
this is in the desktop file AFAIK example /opt/trinity/share/applications/tde/kmahjongg.desktop Categories=Qt;TDE;Game;BoardGame;
said Thierry de Coulon via tde-users:
| I don't know what is is in these menus, but would it be what you find | in /opt/trinity/share/apps/kdesktop/?
That seems primarily to be desktop apps -- such as the xplanets that renders the moon background i've used for 25 years (!), and a lot of kicker things.
I'm sort of exploring to see how the X11 desktop is organized with TDE and others. The others seem to use some formula that is located in [name of desktop].menu in /etc/menus/ but but I don't find a TRE one there.
Though now I see that there is an /opt/trinity/etc/xdg/menus/tde-applications.menu as well as an applications-merged/tde-essential.menu in that same directory in /opt/trinity
Apparently other desktops go foraging for other applications when they're installed, and they find some and not others. Some of them work and others don't. It is anything but straightforward. One of TDE's strengths id the menu editor, which is not universally found. So the user is stuck with what's on the menu or the command prompt to start applications. The "standard," used by other desktops, shows signs of committee design, in that it is overly complicated and makes no discernable sense.
On Sat, 09 Aug 2025 20:54:58 +0000 dep via tde-users users@trinitydesktop.org wrote:
I just noticed something and am curious about it.
Most desktops create a .menu file, which lives in the /etc/xdg/menus directory (sadly often after the desktop itself is long gone). But I do not see one for TDE, unless it has some unexpected name.
Where does TDE put its menu?
I found a massively messy XML file in ~/.config/menus/applications-tdemenuedit.menu that looks like it may contain my current menu information, plus a bunch of junky edit history. Whether it's only used by tdemenuedit or is actually applied to the live menu on startup, I have no idea.
E. Liddell
said E. Liddell via tde-users:
| I found a massively messy XML file in | ~/.config/menus/applications-tdemenuedit.menu that looks like it may | contain my current menu information, plus a bunch of junky edit history. | Whether it's only used by tdemenuedit or is actually applied to the | live menu on startup, I have no idea.
Thing is, it seems to also contain stuff that's not in my kmenu.
There has got to be some sense to it -- kmenu works, after all -- but it seems to be kind of a developers secret handshake, a mystery that becomes available only after initiation.
It also makes it difficult if not impossible to have multiple desktops, because even if you try to keep them separate they somehow inspect each other and add their applications to each other's own menus. For example, I've recently been inspecting Enlightenment -- and now there are Enlightenment things in my kmenu. It is nice that packages that we install automatically get added to kmenu, if there's no easily identifiable executable.
Something that I have noticed is that the alternate-desktop menu entry harvesting does not seem to extent to applications added to kmenu by hand.
On 2025-08-10 14:10:08 dep via tde-users wrote:
said E. Liddell via tde-users: | I found a massively messy XML file in | ~/.config/menus/applications-tdemenuedit.menu that looks like it may | contain my current menu information, plus a bunch of junky edit history. | Whether it's only used by tdemenuedit or is actually applied to the | live menu on startup, I have no idea.
Thing is, it seems to also contain stuff that's not in my kmenu.
There has got to be some sense to it -- kmenu works, after all -- but it seems to be kind of a developers secret handshake, a mystery that becomes available only after initiation.
It also makes it difficult if not impossible to have multiple desktops, because even if you try to keep them separate they somehow inspect each other and add their applications to each other's own menus. For example, I've recently been inspecting Enlightenment -- and now there are Enlightenment things in my kmenu. It is nice that packages that we install automatically get added to kmenu, if there's no easily identifiable executable.
Something that I have noticed is that the alternate-desktop menu entry harvesting does not seem to extent to applications added to kmenu by hand.
On the other hand, applications downloaded from non-repository sites hardly ever automatically add entries to the menu. Thank goodness that we have KMenuEdit!
Leslie
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deloptes -
dep -
E. Liddell -
J Leslie Turriff -
Thierry de Coulon