Say Hi to the Edubuntu Menu Editor

Back at UDS in Dallas, TX we decided that one of the focus for Edubuntu in Lucid would be to to make menu customization a lot easier.

So we wrote a specification covering most use cases for menu customization, editing and sharing.

After a few months of work, mostly done by my colleague at Revolution Linux, Marc Gariepy, we now have a working tool, that’s in Edubuntu’s default installation.

You can install it on a regular Lucid desktop by doing: sudo apt-get install edubuntu-menueditor
A PPA is also available here (Lucid and Karmic).

Or download Edubuntu’s latest daily build here.

It’ll install you two different tools:

  • The menu editor itself in Applications => System Tools => Menueditor
  • The Profile manager in System => Administration => Profile manager

The first can be run by any user, it shows you a window like this one:

menueditor-main

There you can create new sub-menus, copy items in them and hide items from the existing menu. Then save it (as a .tar.gz archive).

With this archive, you can either share it with your friends/colleagues/general community or directly start the Profile manager to import it and assign it to a group.
On login, all users in that group will see that new menu you assigned them.

menueditor-profile

As every new open source projects, it’s not bug free, so if you find a bug or have suggestions, please go to Launchpad and report them here.

Now it’s your turn to start creating and sharing your menus for your region/country/school system or for your company.
And if you aren’t using Ubuntu in English, you can go on Launchpad and help us by translating it to your language !

NOTE: It’s currently “branded” as Edubuntu-specific, that’s done because it’s initially an Edubuntu project but it’ll work with every xdg-based menu (that’s why the Lauchpad project is called “menueditor”).

About Stéphane Graber

Project leader of Linux Containers, Linux hacker, Ubuntu core developer, conference organizer and speaker.
This entry was posted in Edubuntu, Planet Revolution-Linux, Planet Ubuntu. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Say Hi to the Edubuntu Menu Editor

  1. Adi Roiban says:

    If you care about translations quality, it would be nice if the translations for menueditor would use either Ubuntu or Launchpad Translations grup with a structured or restricted translation policy.

    Right now, translations are opened, and anyone can submit good or bad translations.

    Cheers

  2. Dave Wilson says:

    Hi,
    I found that using menu editor and profile manager did not allow me to create a menu for a group. Do you know of issues with this software which prevent this from happening.

    Regards

    Dave

  3. Dave Wilson says:

    If you follow my previous answer you will note that I was having trouble with menu editor.

    Th problem is that your write up and others misses the fact that once you have used Profile Manager and set up the associations, a simple Save is needed to activate the relationship between the Group and the Menu within the Profile Manager itself.

    Now how do I alter/change the Places menu ?

    Regards

    Dave

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