Menu Editor

The Menueditor is a tool that creates menus that can be applied to users and groups with its profile editor.

Where to find it?

• The menueditor is part of the package edubuntu-menueditor and is found under Applications/Systems Tools/Edubuntu menu editor.

• Interface presentation

  

• The interface is very simple, it consist of a 2 column tree-view.
  • The left column Contain the icons and entry names,
  • The right one contain a check box to toggle between hide/show for the items.
  • Items in the tree-view have context menu available, depending of the items, and where it comes from you might have more option available in the context menu
  • A menu consist of 2 types of items:
    • Desktop entry, that usually launch application
    • Sub-menus, that can contain other sub-menu and desktop entry

Working with sub-menus

Adding a sub-menu to the menu

• Sub-menus can be added anywhere in the menu tree, to create a new sub-menu, follow the following simple steps:
  1. decide where you want to create the sub-menu and right-click,

  2. A context menu appear, click on Add Sub-menu,

     

  3. A dialog box will appear and ask you for the name and a comment for the menu,

     

     • The name will be displayed as the submenu name,
     • The comment will appear when the mouse stays over the menu for a while.

  4. click on OK to create then menu entry.

     

Editing Menus

It's only possible to edit and delete sub-menus you have created, copied or moved. Context menu activate items only for action you can perform.

• Editing a name or comment

  • Select the sub-menu you want to edit, do a right-click and select Edit Sub-menu.

  • A dialog box will appear containing the current menu name. Change the appropriate value and press OK

    

  • The interface now shows the new name for the menu.

    

• Deleting or Hiding items
  • Difference between deleting and hiding.
    • Deleting an item can only be done for created or copied item.
    • Hiding item can be done to any item.
  • Usualy you will want to delete items you have created or moved, and hide all other items.

  • To delete an item, simply right-click on the item you want to delete and select the Delete Item from the sub menu.

  • To hide an item, simply uncheck the checkbox on the right.
    • When hiding a sub-menu, all items in the sub-menu are hidden,

      If an application that goes in this sub-menu is installed afterward the item will show up in the menu.

Copying/Moving an item

• Items in menu can be copied to another place, to do so simply drag and drop the item in the menu.
• Items in the tree cannot be moved, but can be copied and then hidden.
• This is the way the menueditor is used to add applications in custom sub-menu, simply select the item you want in your menu, drag it over your sub-menu and release it. The item will appear into the sub-menu.

• Saving your work

  • Select File/Save from the menu

  • Browse where you want to save your file and enter a name, you will need to add the .tar.gz extension as well.

Profilemanager

Profilemanager is used to link profile made with Menueditor to group of users.

How to find it

• Profilemanager is part of the package edubuntu-menueditor and is found under System/Administration/Edubuntu menu editor - Profile Manager.

• User Interface

  

• The interface is quite simple

  • It consist of 3 lists of element: Groups, Menus and Group and menu associations

Groups

• Groups contain the list of groups present on the system.

• You can show system group (group with a gid lower then 1000), by selecting View/Show system group from the menu.

Menus

Importing menus

• To import a menu, simply do a right-click in the Menus area

• Select Import new profile, navigate to your previously created menus.

• Enter the name of the menu and press Ok, the menu appear in the list of menus and files are created in /etc/edubuntu-menueditor/.

  Only alpha-numeric, dash (-), underscore (_) and dot (.) are allowed naming of menus, any other character will be replaced by an underscore.

Deleting menus from the system

• Right-click on a menus from the menu list.

• Select Delete Item from the context menu.

  Be careful not to delete used menus.

Adding associations

• Associations mean to link a menu with a group.
• Simply drag a group and drop it over a menu.
• Dragging a menu over a group will work too.

• You will need to save to activate it, select File/Save from the menu.

Removing an association

• Right-click on the association you want to delete and select Remove from the context menu, then confirm you want to delete the configuration file under /etc/deskop-profile/.

• You don't need to save at this point. The file is deleted when you confirm.

After this, when a user that is part of the group logs in, the menu should be updated.