Debian Menu System ------------------ Joost Witteveen Joey Hess Christian Schwarz version 1.3, 16 February 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abstract -------- The `menu' package was inspired by the `install-fvwm2-menu' program from the old `fvwm2' package. However, `menu' tries to provide a more general interface for menu building. With the `update-menus' command from this package, no package needs to be modified for every X window manager again, and it provides a unified interface for both text- and X-oriented programs. Copyright Notice ---------------- Copyright (C)1997 Joost Witteveen, Joey Hess, Christian Schwarz. This manual is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but _without any warranty_; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU General Public License for more details. A copy of the GNU General Public License is available as `/usr/doc/copyright/GPL' in the Debian GNU/Linux distribution or on the World Wide Web at `http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html'. You can also obtain it by writing to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents -------- 1. Introduction 2. Menu from the viewpoint of a user 2.1. How/when do the window manger startup files get created? 2.2. Tuning of the generated window manager startup files 2.3. Optimization of menu tree: hints 3. What packages with applications should do 3.1. Registering your applications 3.2. Preferred menu structure 3.3. Hints 3.4. Icons 3.5. Fvwm's task and title bars 4. What packages with menu managers should do 5. How a user can override the menus 5.1. Configuring the menus 5.2. Specifying a ``no-menu entry'' 5.3. Include: (one) other feature 6. The internals of the menu package 6.1. The update-menus program 6.2. The install-menu program 6.3. The install-menu config script definitions 6.4. Hints, tree optimization 6.5. Variables and functions in the install-menu scripts ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Introduction --------------- Before the advent of `update-menus', 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, `fvwm''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. `update-menus' 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. `update-menus' 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 `update-menus' as that user, thus creating window-manager startup files that are used in preference to the systemwide files. 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 /Apps/Editors, 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 /Apps/Editors tree in, say Editors/Beginner, Editors/Experienced, or whatever, if there are many entries in that submenu, or maybe even totally removing /Apps/Editors 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). Each package that needs to add an entry to the menu tree, includes a menu file `/usr/lib/menu/package-name'. In this file, it will have one line per menu entry, like this (copied from `/usr/lib/menu/xbase'): ?package(xbase):command="/usr/bin/X11/xedit" needs="X11" \ section="Apps/Editors" title="Xedit" \ hints="Beginner,Small" 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 /Apps/Editors is overfull, it could put Xedit in a Apps/Editors/Beginner or Apps/Editors/Small subsection. Whenever `root' runs `update-menus', it will check all menu files in `/etc/menu' and `/usr/lib/menu', and run the installation scripts that display managers like `fvwm2' should provide in `/etc/menu-methods'. 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.) 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/doc/menu/examples. Everything written for menu-1.0 will work with menu-2.0. 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). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Menu from the viewpoint of a user ------------------------------------ 2.1. How/when do the window manger startup files get created? ------------------------------------------------------------- Basically, you as user don't need to know any of how and when the startupfiles are created, but you might be interested to know anyway. When a package that wants to add something to the menu tree gets installed, it will run `update-menus' in it's `postinst' script. Update-menus then reads in all menu files in `/etc/menu/' `/usr/lib/menu' and `/usr/lib/menu/default', and stores the menu entries of all installed packages in memory. Once that has been done, it will run the menu-methods in `/etc/menu-methods/*', and pipe the information about the menu entries to the menu-methods on stdout, so that the menu-methods can read this. Each Window Manager or other program that wants to have the debian menu tree, will supply a menu-method script in `/etc/menu-methods/'. This menu-method then knows how to generate the startup-file for that window manager. To facilitate this task for the window-manager maintainers, menu provides a `install-menu' program. This program can generate the startupfiles for just about every window manager. 2.2. Tuning of the generated window manager startup files --------------------------------------------------------- In principle this is a very window-manager specific business. But for all window managers (and others) applies: The file to attack is the menu-method in `/etc/menu-methods/$wm', with `$wm' the name of your window manager. However, if this menu-method `!include'-s the `menu.h' file (as it should), you can also edit that file, to make your changes work for every installed window manager. If the menu-method file of your window manager does `!include' the `menu.h' file, and makes proper use of the definitions in there, then you can look at the comments in that `menu.h' file to see how you can make minor adjustments to the look of your menus in your window manager. To generally change the menu tree, see the next section: 2.3. Optimization of menu tree: hints ------------------------------------- If in the `/etc/menu-methods/*' script appears the definition `hint_optimize=true' (actually, that definition should appear in the `!include'-ed `menu.h' file), then install-menu will try to alter the menu tree, to make every submenu have about the optimum number of menu entries (as specified by `hints_nentry=...'). It will do that by removing under-full submenus (only if the `parent' of that submenu isn't itself already overfull), and by possibly creating new submenus, using hints. Note, however, that the optimization of the tree takes in principle exponential time, so I've had to speedup the process, at the expense of occasionally not finding the best tree. So, the tree you are presented with may not be optimal. For tuning variables, see the hint_* variables in the last chapter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. What packages with applications should do -------------------------------------------- 3.1. Registering your applications ---------------------------------- A package should provide a menu file `/usr/lib/menu/' that contains information about each program it likes to make available in the menus. Here is an example to describe the syntax of such a file: ?package(gnuplot):\ specifies what packages need to be installed needs=text\ what kind of terminal this command expects needs=X11: if this program runs only on X11 needs=text: if it only runs on text terminals (the window manager should spawn an xterm or rxvt in this case) needs=vc: runs only at linux console needs=wm: this starts another window manager section=Apps/Math\ in what section this menu entry should be title="Gnuplot"\ the title of the menu entry (please make it short!) command="/usr/bin/gnuplot" the command to run. A program like gnuplot which can be run on X11 as well as on a text terminal should _not_ have an extra entry with `needs=X11' because it will then be next to impossible to configure the window managers to spawn `rxvt' instead of the default `xterm'. On the other hand, if a program (like `emacs') can be run as real X application as well as in a terminal, two entries should be listed, otherwise the program will always be run in an `xterm' (or `rxvt'). In the menu entry files, you can use "#" as comment (like in shell scripts). You should add a line like this to your `postinst' script if test -x /usr/bin/update-menus; then update-menus; fi and the `postrm' script should get the line if test -x /usr/bin/update-menus; then update-menus; fi (that is, the same line in postinst and in postrm). 3.2. Preferred menu structure ----------------------------- Here is the _authoritative list of Debian's menu structure_. If you have a package which does not fit in here or if you have any suggestions how to improve this structure, please send an email to the maintainer of the `menu' package, Joost Witteveen . If you have more general remarks about restructuring the menu tree (or adding an entry that may require discussion), the best thing to do is to go to `debian-policy', and start a discussion there. I (Joost) will without hesitation change the structure of the menu-tree if a decision was reached on debian-policy, but I'm very reluctant to changes without prior discussion. Please do _not_ put your packages into any other sections without asking for permission first! Apps - normal apps Editors - editors (run it in xterm, if nothing else) Emulators - dosemu, etc. Graphics - xpaint, xfig, xtiff, etc. Hamradio - Anything relating to ham radio. Math - gnuplot, octave, oleo, etc. Net - mail, news, web, irc, etc. Programming - debuggers, etc. Tools - other tools: xclock, xmag, xman, etc. Technical - technical stuff. Text - text oriented tools other than editors. Shells - bash, ksh, zsh, etc. Sound - TkMidity, etc. Viewers - Picture viewers, gs, etc. System - system administration and monitoring tools Games - games and recreations Adventure - walk around virtual space, zork, MOO's, etc Arcade - (any game where reflexes count) Board - Like: Gnuchess, pente, gnugo Card - solitaire, etc Puzzles - Stuff from xpuzzles, ... Sports - Games derived from "real world" sports Strategy - Build your world (Games like lincity, freeciv) Tetris-like - games involving falling blocks Toys - (oneko, xeyes, etc.) Screen - Lock - xlock, etc. Save - Root-window - things that fill the root window WindowManagers - (change between fvwm, afterstep, etc) Modules - fvwm modules, etc. XShells - shells (like xterm, rxvt, ...) 3.3. Hints ---------- Hints have been added starting from this version of menu. There needs to be some discussion about them first, but if you want to try them out, simply add a hints="Myhint,Herhint,Hishint" definition to the menu entry file. For example: ?package(emacs20):\ needs="x11"\ hints="Big,Expert,Featureful" \ section="Apps/Editors"\ title="Emacs 20"\ command="/usr/bin/emacs20"\ icon=/usr/share/emacs/20.3/etc/emacs.xbm The above hints will case `menu' to consider grouping `emacs' together with other editors that are marked similar. For example, if `vi' on your system has a hints="Small,Expert" definition, and there are too many entries in the /Apps/Editors menuentry, then menu will consider creating a /Apps/Editors/Expert submenu, and put both `vi' and `emacs' in it. (of course, only if you have `hint_optimize=true' in your /etc/menu-methods/menu.h file). 3.4. Icons ---------- Please, make sure the icons you specify are always available on the system. So, if you want to have an icon with your menu entry, the preferred method is to supply the icon with that package. Also, to prevent the distribution of icons files to turn too much into a mess, please put all icon files in the directory `/usr/X11R6/include/X11/{bitmaps,pixmaps}'. Debian package maintainers should ensure that any icons they include for use in the debian menus conform to the following points: 1. The icons should be in xpm format. 2. The icons may not be larger than 32x32 pixels, although smaller sizes are ok. 3. The icons should use only the 24 colors present in cmap.xpm, which comes with the `menu' package. 4. The background area of the icon should be transparent, if possible. If you have Imagemagick installed, you can make your icons meet requirements 1, 2, and 3 with the following command, but you will need to edit the icon afterwards to clean it up and make the background transparent: $ mogrify -format xpm -geometry 32x32 -map cmap.xpm If you, as a system administrator, don't like the icons in the menus, simply remove the `$%{icon}' from the files in `/etc/menu-methods/$wm', and run `update-menus'. It's also possible to specify an icon for a sub-menu. However, if each package would supply its own icons for the sub menus we can never be sure that the icon files are available. Thus, only the `menu' package is allowed to specify icons for sub menus. The syntax for this is: X11 Apps menu/apps /usr/X11R6/include/X11/pixmap/icon.xpm "Editors" 3.5. Fvwm's task and title bars ------------------------------- The problem with the stuff in the task bar is that all items are displayed all of the time. So, if 1500 debian packages all were to register a button, the buttons would quickly fill the screen, making the exercise useless. The few applications that are considered important enough to be listed in the task bar usually vary widely on each system, making it impossible to select a ``happy few'' apps that are allowed there on every debian system. If you (as a local system administrator) want your `fvwm2' to have a few buttons, you can install files for those packages in `/menu/$package', containing a menu entry like this: ?Package(xmball):needs=button\ section=Games/Puzzles\ icon=path-to-pixmap.xpm\ title="Xmball"\ command=/usr/games/xmball Then, do the following: cd /etc/menu-methods/ cp fvwm2 fvwm2button vi fvwm2button and remove all the "supported" entries, adding the one below. For the rest, leave everything the same except those listed below. supported button="+ Style \"" $title "\" TitleIcon" $icon " Exec " $command "\n" endsupported startmenu: "AddToTitlebar \n" endmenu: "\n" submenutitle:"" mainmenu: genmenu: "buttondefs.hook" (Of course regular users (not system administrators) can also specify `buttonfiles' in their ~/.menu/ directory). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. What packages with menu managers should do --------------------------------------------- Each package containing a _menu manager_ (i.e. a program that can display a menu) should provide a script or program in `/etc/menu-methods/' that can read the menu files. This script will be executed by `update-menus', which will feed the menu entries to be installed to your script via standard input (stdin). The scripts in `/etc/menu-methods/' should be configuration files, so the user can tune the behaviour of the script. Good examples for these scripts for nearly all debian window managers are included in the `menu' package in `/usr/doc/menu/examples'. Note that while working on your script, you can use the tricks described in "The internals of the Menu package", section "The update-menus program", to run just your script, instead of having update-menus run all scripts (can save quite a lot of time). Run `update-menus' (if it exists) in your `postinst' script, and remove the execute bit from the `/etc/menu-methods/' script in the `postrm' when called with option ``remove.'' The wm-menu-config script is provided to make all this easier: Here is an example of such a `postrm' script using `sh': #!/bin/sh set -e wm=twm #or pdmenu, fvwm, ... whatever manager you're installing case "$1" in remove) if test -x /usr/sbin/wm-menu-config; then wm-menu-config $wm off;fi ;; purge) #remove the files that install-menu creates: (cd /etc/X11/twm/; rm system.twmrc menus.dat menudefs.hook) ;; upgrade);; *) echo "postrm called with unknown argument \`$1'" >&2 exit 0 ;; esac And here is a good example for a `postinst' script: #!/bin/sh set -e wm=pdmenu #or fvwm, ... whatever manager you're installing if test -x /usr/sbin/wm-menu-config; then wm-menu-config $wm on;fi Please, do not make your package _depend_ on the menu package! The preferred way of telling dpkg that your wm can cooperate with menu is: Suggests: menu (>1.5) Please only consider using "depends" if you feel providing reasonable defaults for systems without menu will make life very difficult for you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. How a user can override the menus ------------------------------------ 5.1. Configuring the menus -------------------------- A user can specify his/her own menu entries in the `~/.menu' 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 ?package(installed-package): or ?package(local.mystuff): if it's something that isn't ``debian-officially'' installed. (Any ``package'' that starts with ```local.''' is considered installed.) If a user wants to have his/her own menu methods, he/she should create a `~/.menu-methods' directory and put all scripts he/she wants to be run in it. (If `~/.menu-methods' exists, `/etc/menu-methods' will not be searched when a user runs `update-menus'). A system administrator should place system-wide menu entries in `/etc/menu' (not in `/usr/lib/menu/package', since these files will probably be overwritten by a package upgrade). 5.2. Specifying a ``no-menu entry'' ----------------------------------- If a user wants to remove an entry from the system menu (in `/etc/menu'), then this will do the trick: echo -n > ~/.menu/package The zero-size file will tell `update-menus' that the corresponding package should not have any menu entries listed. 5.3. Include: (one) other feature --------------------------------- 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. To include the contents of file /usr/lib/menu/somefile, add this to your menu file: !include /usr/lib/menu/somefile Apart form that, it is of course possible to make the menu entry file executable (`chmod a+x ~/.menu/package'), and do something like #!/bin/sh cat /usr/lib/menu/somefile sed -e "/unwanted_entry/s/?package(/?package(notinstalled./" \ /usr/lib/menu/someotherfile to get the same effect, with the added flexibility of being able to filter out unwanted lines. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. The internals of the menu package ------------------------------------ 6.1. The update-menus program ----------------------------- On startup, update-menus checks the file `/var/run/update-menus.pid' and the pid in it. If there's an `update-menus' process with that pid it kills it. If `/var/lib/dpkg/lock' exists, it forks to background and returns control to dpkg. The background process checks the `/var/lib/dpkg/lock' file approx. every second until the file's gone. After that, `update-menus' reads the menu-entry-files in the following directories:`/etc/menu /usr/lib/menu /usr/lib/menu/default' (if a user runs `update-menus', it will add ~/.menu to the front of that list). For every menu entry line in each file it checks if the corresponding package is installed (works on file bases for old syntax menu entry files). The menu entries of all "installed" packages are added together in one big buffer that is kept in memory (exception: executable menu entry files are executed, and stdout is placed in the buffer). Once it's read all menu entry files, `update-menus' starts all executable scripts in /etc/menu-methods/, hands the scripts the previously created buffer via stdin. (If `update-menus' is ran by a user, it will first try to run the scripts in ~/.menu-methods, and only if that directory doesn't exist, it will run the scripts in /etc/menu-methods). Note that as an aid to debugging, one can create a simple script like #!/bin/sh cat > /tmp/menu-stdout and then view the file /tmp/menu-stdout to see exactly what `update-menus' handed the menu-methods on their stdin. This may also be useful for people writing /etc/menu-method/* scripts: Running `update-menus' every time you changed something in the script may be quite time-consuming. So, it's much easier to install the above script in `/etc/menu-methods/', run `update-menus' once, and then run /etc/menu-methods/mymethod < /tmp/menu-stdin (and, if that also takes too long, just try editing /tmp/menu-stdin, and removing 90% or so of all entries) 6.2. The install-menu program ----------------------------- The files `/etc/menu-methods/$wm' are executable config files that start with the line #!/usr/sbin/install-menu and thus start that program, handing it the configuration file for the specific window manager in the first command line argument. This configuration consists of: 1. the compatibility mode ("menu-1" or "menu-2"). 2. where the various files should be stored/read. 3. what "needs" are supported, and what wrapper files should be used for each "type". See `/usr/doc/menu/examples/' of the menu package for more comments. Options to `install-menu': -v be verbose -d Produce loads of debugging output Some window managers don't support an `include' like statement in their `system.*rc' files (like `m4' or `cpp' preprocessing), they cannot read the `menudefs.hook' file generated by install-menu from their `system.*rc' config file. To still be able to use them, `install-menu' will copy the file `$path/$examplercfile' to `$path/$rcfile' (with `$examplercfile' and `$rcfile' defined in the `install-menu' config file, and `$path' eihter the `$rootprefix' or `${HOME}/userprefix', depending on whether root or user executed the file.), and replace all occurrences of ``install-menu-defs'' with the `$genmenu' file it just generated. As an example, consider the following: `examplercfile=system.foo-wm-example', `rcfile=system.foo-wm', `genmenu=menudefs.hook' and `rootprefix=/etc/X11/foo-wm'. Now, if `install-menu' gets run, it will first generate the file `/etc/X11/foo-wm/menudefs.hook'. Next, it will line-by-line read the file `/etc/X11/foo-wm/system.foo-wm-example' and copy it's contents to `/etc/X11/foo-wm/system.foo-wm', replacing every occurrence of the string `install-menu-defs' by the contents of the file `/etc/X11/foo-wm/menudefs.hook'. To activate the file copying in this way, simply define the `$examplercfile' and `$rcfile' variables in the `install-menu' configuration file (for example, see `/etc/menu-methods/fvwm'), and make sure there is a `$path/$examplercfile' (`$path' being either `$rootprefix', or `$userprefix'.) If you are wringing a menu method, you can use the following to debug it somewhat easier: 1. use the "cat" menu-method in `/usr/doc/menu/examples/cat' to create a list of menu entries in `/tmp/menu-stdin' (put it in `~/.menu-methods', and run `update-menus'), and then 2. you can run just your menu-method with (if it's called wm): ./wm -v < /tmp/menu-stdin (Use `-v' for verbose, `-d' for debugging, and you'll get loads of output!) 6.3. The install-menu config script definitions ----------------------------------------------- The menu-methods in `/etc/menu-methods/*' are basically made up of a lot of ``tag=string'' definitions, explaining `install-menu' how to generate a `system.$wmrc' script. This way you can tune the look of generated `system.$wmrc' to your needs. In the following, something like treewalk="c(m)" means that the treewalk variable by default has the value "c(m)". For examples of what these scripts can look like, see `/usr/doc/menu/examples/*'. `compat="menu-1"' Should always be "menu-1". Please, make this the first non-comment line in the script. `supported' `endsupported' Between the `supported' and `endsupported' keywords you define what "needs" are supported by this window manager. So, the following is an example for a wm that supports both needs=x11 and needs=text: supported x11=" ShowEntry(\"" $title "\", \"" $command "\")" text=" ShowEntry(\"" $title "\", \"" $command "xterm -T " $title " -e " $command "\")" endsupported For the variable substitution (and functions, not shown above), see the next paragraph. In the above example, you'll notice that for the menu entries that "need=text", an xterm is spawned for the command to run in. Also, as x11 is higher up in the supported list above than text, a package that supplies both a "needs=x11" and a "needs=text" entry will have the needs=x11 entry installed, in favour of the needs=text entry. You can continue lines on the next line with a \, but do make sure you don't add any spaces after the \. `startmenu=""' `endmenu=""' `submenutitle=""' These define what to print for the beginning/end of a menu, and how to the print a menu entry that pops up another menu entry. They are substituted the same way as the "supported" stuff is. (see next paragraph). `treewalk="c(m)"' This string defines in what order to dump the `$startmenu', `$endmenu', and `$submenutitle' (and its children). Each char in the string refers to: c : dump children of menu. m : dump this menu's $submenutitles ( : dump $startmenu ) : dump $endmenu M : dump all $submenutitles of this menu and this menu's children. The default is "c(m)". For olvwm, one needs: "(M)" `genmenu=""' The menu file to generate (usually something like `system."$wm"rc'). The file itself may depend on the level or title that is currently being worked on, like genmenu="/subdir/" replacewith($section," ","_") "/rc.menu" (Substitution works just like in the supported stuff, see above). Note that the files made this way are truncated upon opening, so if you have a genmenu like the example above, then your `endmenu=' will override the startmenu stuff (but you probably only need one of the two anyway). `rootsection="/Debian"' the prefix, every `$section' variable gets. `prerun=""' `postrun=""' The commands to run before resp. after the actual generation of the `menudefs.hook' (genmenu) file. Commands will be executed by `sh'. Example: prerun="rm -rf " prefix() "/*" postrun="killall -USR1 fvwm2" (Substitution works just like the supported stuff, see below). `preruntest=""' Just like prerun, but if the return value of the command is non-zero, menu will quit. `also_run=""' If non-zero, install-menus will, after generating the output files, also load the file also_run, and use the new assignments to treewalk, genmenu, etc to generate more output. This second time, variables like `prerun' and all of the hint stuff are ignored. Note: NOT just like `prerun' etc: `prerun' etc start a command with /bin/sh, `also_run' doesn't exec any other command, just tells install-menu to also load anoter binary, and generate the output. `onlyrunasroot=false' `onlyrunasuser=false' If onlyrunasroot is set to true, menu will quit silently when run as user. Similarly for onlyrunasuser. `preoutput="#Automatically generated file. Do not edit (see /usr/doc/menu/html)\n\n"' `postoutput=""' Text to put at the beginning resp. end of the generated file ($genmenu). `command=""' A command to run instead of `install-menus'. This command used to be needed to get around limitations due to compatibilty stuff. But that compatibility with pre menu-1 stuff has been dropped, and isn't needed any more. Example: command="cat > /tmp/menu-stdin" `hotkeyexclude=""' Keys not to use for hotkey generation. You can use the same variables and functions here as in for example the startmenu sections. Example: hotkeyexclude="q" $section `hotkeycase="insensitive"' can be either "insensitive" or "sensitive". Determines whether the hotkeys can be of mixed case (`fvwm2' reads the hotkeys case-insensitive, `pdmenu' case-sensitive). In case of the titles "Xa" and "xb", hotkey case-insensitive will generate "X" and "b", whereas case-sensitive would generate "X" and "x". `sort=$sort ":" $title' Entries within one menu will be alphabetically sorted by whatever sort returns. So, if you do `sort=ifelse($command, "1", "0"):$title', then all submenus will appear above the commands in a submenu. (A submenu always has `$command=""'). Or, as Joey Hess writes: You can add another field to the menu items, with whatever name you like, let's say it's called priority. Then add this line to /etc/menu-methods/*: sort=ifelse($priority, $priority, "9") This has the result of sorting things so items with a low priority sort to the top, and items with no priority default to priority 9 and sort to the bottom. (Note that it compares the strings alphabetically, not numerically.) `rcfile=""' If the window manager doesn't support an "include filename" or "read(filename)" statement in it's config file, you can rename the wm's config file to `system."$wm"rc-menu', and insert a "install-menu-defs" line (without the quotes, or whitespace around it, and "install-menu-defs" must be the only thing on the line) in the `system."$wm"rc-menu' file. This will then get replaced by the `$genmenu' file that was just created (see also `$examplercfile'). `examplercfile=""' if needed (see `rcfile'), this is the `system.rc"$wm"-menu' file. In that case, make `rcfile=system.rc"$wm"'. `rootprefix=""' The prefix to use when running as root (applies to $genmenu, $rcfile, $examplercfile and other old cache files) `userprefix=""' see `rootprefix', but when running as user. `process_menudirs="user,system"' Directories that `install-menu' will process menu entry files from (new in menu-2.1.6). The default is "`user', `etc', `debian', `default'", which means that `install-menu' will read files found in `${HOME}/.menu', then in `/etc/menu', then in `/usr/lib/menu', and last in `/usr/lib/menu/default'. To make life easier, there's an alias for the `etc', `debian', `default' locations: `system'. Note that the order in which you specify the locations doesn't matter. To be complete, `user'=`"${HOME}/.menu"'; `etc'=`"/etc/menu"'; `debian'=`"/usr/lib/menu"'; `default'=`"/usr/lib/menu/default"'; `system'=`"/etc/menu', `/usr/lib/menu', `/usr/lib/menu/default"' If you have a WM which allows an "incremental" user configuration file (with only the menu entries of the users), then you may want to specify: process_menudirs="user, " ifroot(system) This will cause `install-menu' to discard all system menu entry files if run as normal user, and the user's WM-config file can `#include' the system menu definitions from `/etc/WM/*'. Note that if you do this, you disable an elswehere in this manual advertised feature: if the user does `true > ~/.menu/package', then the user doesn't have the menu entry files from `package'. But as in your case the user's WM-config file `#include's the system wide menu defintions, this will not work any more. The way this feature works may not be the one you at first glance expect: when the user or system admin runs `update-menus', it will read all menu entry files in all directories (user, etc, debian and default). `update-menus' then generates one big list of the concatenated files (whose packages are installed), and hands that file to the stdin of the `install-menu' program in `/etc/menu-methods/*'. That program then reads the `process_menudirs' variable, and starts processing the input given by `update-menus'. And it will discard any menu entry files if they appear to originate from a directory not specified in `process_menudirs'. Due to this implementation, it is not possible for `install-menu' to read menu entry files outside the standard user, etc, debian and default directories, and also the order of the directories in `process_menudirs' has no effect. Also, as `update-menus', when ran under root will not process the user's (root) home dir, so the `user' setting in `process_menudirs' will simply have no effect. `repeat_lang=""' If set to "LOCALE", then menu will automatically translate all title's to the languages specified by the current LC_LOCALE setting. (LC_ALL, ...). It is intended to expand this to `repeat_lang="en:es:eo:nl"', which would repeatedly run install-menus for the various specified languages. But the latter hasn't yet been implemented. `hint_optimize=false' If set to true, menu will try to generate an `optimal' tree, using the variables below. If set to false, menu will keep the sections as they are specified in the menu entry files (and ignore any hint stuff). `hint_nentry=6' Optimal number of entries in a submenu. It's a float, so you can set it to 5.5 if you cannot decide between 5 and 6. Also, values less than 3 probably don't work very well at the moment. `hint_topnentry=5' Same as hint_nentry, but for the top level menu. Often here are other entries, added by the Window Manager itself (like Exit, Xterm, whatever) that menu doesn't know about, so that you may want to instruct menu to put less entries in the top level menu. `hint_mixedpenalty=15.0' Penalty for `mixed' menus. Mixed menus are those with both submenus and direct commands in them. `hint_minhintfreq=0.1' Minimal relative frequency for the hints before they are considered. Internal variable to speed up the tree generation. If you find menu slow, increase this value (to, say 0.2 or 0.3). `hint_mlpenalty=2000' `max local penalty', while evaluating the possible trees, menu gives `penalties' for submenus that don't contain the desired number of submenus. The penalty is sqrt(n_entry_opt-n_entry), and eventually will be calculated as a sum of all nodes. But to speed things up, menu will discard possibilities in which any node has a `local' penalty of more than hint_mlpenalty. Increase this value if you think menu is overlooking your favorite tree (also decrease minhintfreq), decrease this value if you think menu is waisting too much time. Because of hint_max_ntry, the influence of this variable is nearly zero nowadays. `hint_max_ntry=4' menu will recursively, for each node, try the hint_max_ntry best local menu-divisions. `hints_max_iter_hint=5' The search for what hints to use in one menu is rather expensive. But due to the way things are sorted, menu seems to always find the `best' match in the first 2% of iterations. Thus, a way to speedup things is simply to cut of menu searching after `some' iterations are done. This value controls this, and limits the number of iterations to 5+hint_max_iter_hint*number_of_possible_hints. Set this value to negative to disable this. `hint_debug=false' Set to true if you want to see loads and loads of debug output. 6.4. Hints, tree optimization ----------------------------- The hints actually work in a rather strange way: when `hint_optimize=true' then all `$section' elements are added to the specified `$hints' variable, and the order (/Apps/Editors or /Editors/Apps) of the resulting hints is completely ignored. Then, the hints for each menu entry are handed to the optimization routine, that will calculate a reasonable tree for those hints. That tree must comply with the following: When a user looks for a program "Program" with, say, hints "Good,Bulky,Heaven", then, while walking through the tree, it should at every node visited be clear for the user what submenu to select (or the menu should have "Program" directly in it). So, the toplevel menu may look like Good Hell Microsoft because then a searcher for a menu entry with hints "Good,Bulky,Heaven" will know to select the submenu "Good". The toplevel menu may not look like Good Hell Heaven as now it isn't clear whether to visit the Good or the Heaven submenu. That rule allows usually for many different trees, and the task of the optimization procedure is to select, in a finite amount of time, the tree that best matches the user's desire obout the optimum number of menu entries. 6.5. Variables and functions in the install-menu scripts -------------------------------------------------------- The supported "needs" definitions and "startmenu=", "endmenu=" and "submenutitle=" are interpreted as follows: String constants: Anything inside double quotes ("") is interpreted as a string, and is written verbatim to the output file. Stuff like \n, \t, ... will be substituted for their C expansions (But not \0xx, currently). Variables: Anything matching $[a-z,A-Z,_]* is interpreted as a variable, and the corresponding definition from the menu entry is substituted. Special variables: The following variables are treated in a special way by install-menus, either because they are used for other purposes too, or because they are modified by install-menus (the ones marked with a "!" are modified by install-menus). needs: used to determine whether the window manager supports this menu entry. command: If this is undefined, this menu entry is taken as defining a sub-menu. (this way you can specify icons of sub-menus). title!: Used for sorting (see section). For sub-menu entries (those with empty command), this is initialised to the last part of the section. Please, keep the title short (two words at maximum). The title is for people who already know what programme they want to start. See "longtitle" and "description" below for longer descriptions. sort: used for sorting (see section). To make sure an entry is at the beginning, use something with a low ASCII number, like "$". For sorting at the end, use "|" section!:Used to determine the section of the menu entry. The menu entries that have a empty $command, ie those that define a submenu, have $title added to the end of $section The menu entries that have a non-empty $command have their $section modified to $section/$title, or $section/$sort:$title if $sort is defined. The menu entries within one submenu are sorted according to $section. hotkey!: Modified to reflect what install-menus thinks is the most suitable hotkey for this menu entry. The hotkey= in the menu entry file is taken as a suggestion, that could be overwritten if there is another entry with the same hotkey=. To suggest two possible hotkeys for an entry use hotkey="ab", with "a" being the most preferred hotkey. Preferred variables: The following aren't special for install-menus, but it's nice (read: essential) to use the same variables for the same things. So, I'll suggest some here. If you want to invent new ones, please do so and mail them to me so that I can include them here. icon: The location of the iconfile for this menu entry. If you don't have an iconfile, just leave out the icon= in the menu entry. longtitle: For people that like descriptive titles (about one line) It is probably best to include this in your menu entries, while the window-managers don't (by default) put it in the menus. That way, people who want descriptive titles can turn them on, but others don't need to use them. description:An even longer description (about 5 lines). For example, a description of the documentation in the dwww generated html pages. Suggested variables: The following variables probably shouldn't appear often (or at all) in the menu files supplied with packages. They are mostly intended for use by local system managers. Nevertheless, it is advised that all debian systems use the following variable names: visible: Some apps add entries to utmp the utmp file, so that "who" and friends know they are running (this is especially true for xterms etc). If $visible set (to anything other than "" or "none"), xterms etc will not write logging info to utmp. (may not work for your window manager). geometry: For X apps, this will be the size of the (main) window that will be created (units in either chars or pixels, depending on type of main window (xterm or graphic)). If you as package maintainer want to use this, you should probably think about setting this variable somewhere in an Xresources file. Functions: Anything matching [a-z,A-Z,_] is taken as a function (and an error is generated if the function doesn't exist). The arguments of the functions can be other functions, string constants or variables. prefix() returns the current prefix dir: either $rootprefix, or $HOME/$userprefix, depending on who runs install-menu ifroot($rootarg, $userarg) if(getuid()==0) print $rootarg, else print $userarg print($arg) Same as just $arg; if $arg is empty, generate an error. nstring($n, $string) write $string $n times. So, nstring(3,"Aa") writes "AaAaAa". (Useful in combination with level()). esc($arg1,$arg2) Print $arg1, but escape all occurrences of characters in $arg2 with a \. (thus, if arg1="hello", arg2="lo", print "he\l\l\o"). escwith($arg1, $arg2, $arg3) Same as esc, but use $arg3 as escape sequence. escfirst($arg1, $arg2, $arg3) Same as escwith, but only escapes thirst occurrence of $arg2. cppesc($arg1) Escape anything that isn't a letter, number or _ with $. So, for example, a '-' is replaced by '$2D'. This way, $arg1 can be used as a #define in cpp. tolower($arg) toupper($arg) Returns the argument set in lowercases resp uppercases. replacewith($s, $replace, $with) Search s for occurrences of characters from string replace, and replace them by the corresponding character in $with. Example: replacewith_string("hello $world, %dir", "$% ", "123") returns: "hello31world,32dir" ifempty($arg1, $arg2) If $arg1 is empty, print $arg2, otherwise print nothing. For compatibility, $arg1="none" is interpreted as empty. ifnempty($arg1, $arg2) If $arg1 is not empty, print $arg2. For compatibility, the string "none" is seen as empty. ifelse($arg1,$arg2,$arg3) If $arg1 is non-empty, print $arg2, otherwise $arg3. For compatibility, the string "none" is seen as empty. ifeq($arg1, $arg2, $arg3) If ($arg1==$arg2) then print $arg3 ifneq($arg1, $arg2, $arg3) If ($arg1!=$arg2) then print $arg3 ifeqelse($arg1, $arg2, $arg3, $arg4) If ($arg1==$arg2) then print $arg3 else print $arg4 cond_surr($arg1, $arg2, $arg3) If $arg1 is non-empty print $arg2$arg1$arg3, otherwise print nothing. For compatibility, $arg1="none" is interpreted as empty. iffile($arg1, $arg2) If file $arg1 exists, and can be opened for reading by whoever started the current process, return $arg2, otherwise return nothing. ifelsefile($arg1, $arg2, $arg3) If file $arg1 exists, and can be opened for reading by whoever started the current process, return $arg2, otherwise return $arg3. catfile($arg1) Return the contents of file $arg1. forall($array, "var", $exec) For each element of the column separated array $array, set $var to that element, and print $exec. Example: forall("eo:nl", "lang", " name[" $lang "]=\"" translate($lang, title()) "\"\n") will print: name[eo]="Mi estas titolo" name[nl]="Ik ben een titel" parent($arg) for $arg a "directory", return parent directory: parent("/Debian/Apps/Editors") = "/Debian/Apps". basename($arg) return the last part of the parent directory: basename("/Debian/Apps/Editors") = "Apps". stripdir($arg) everything after the last slash, i.e. what basename() should have returned: stripdir("/Debian/Apps/Editors") = "Editors". entrycount() the number of entries in this menu. entryindex() returns relative position of this entry. Start with 0, last entry is entrycount() - 1. BUG: if sort= anything other than $title, then this entryindex() will return incorrect values. firstentry($arg) return $arg if this is the first entry of this menu (that is, entryindex() = 0). Else, return nothing. lastentry() return $arg if this is the last entry in this menu (that is, entryindex() = entrycount() -1). Else, return nothing. level() return nesting of this menu in the total menu tree. add($arg1,$arg2) sub($arg1,$arg2) mult($arg1,$arg2) div($arg1,$arg2) returns the sum, difference, product or quotient of $arg1 and $arg2. Note that the arguments are strings, that are converted to integers. example: mult("24", entryindex()) rcfile() examplercfile() mainmenutitle() rootsection() rootprefix() userprefix() treewalk() postoutput() preoutput() These functions all output whatever they were defined to be in the menu-method file. translate($lang, $text) translate $text into $lang. example: translate("eo", "Apps") prints: Aplikoj String constants, variables and functions can be concatenated by placing them after each other with a space in between, like: "hello" ifelse($comma, $comma, " sorry" $period " comma not defined") " world" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian Menu System Joost Witteveen Joey Hess Christian Schwarz version 1.3, 16 February 2002