Introduction
Nothing groundbreaking was planned for mintMenu in Linux Mint 6 but it still needed many little adjustments, so here comes mintMenu 4.1 with the following changes:
- The search command (which is launched when you press enter after typing text in the filter bar) is now configurable.
- The menu icon is now configurable
- In the places plugin, “Software Portal” was replaced with “Software Manager” and now launches the new MintInstall frontend
- The menu name used to be “Elyssa” and is now “Menu” by default
Also, a lot of bug-fixing and refactoring was done:
- System plugin refactored (to the user that will look better aligned)
- Places plugin refactored (this gets rid of a bug that made “home”, “desktop” and “network” take the focus away from the filter bar)
- Pongo and formatting removed from localization files to make it easier to translate the tool
- MintMenu now relies on mintSystem to get common data
- About dialog now shows GPL licence
- All double capital letters were removed “All Applications”, “All Categories” etc..
Installation
Before you upgrade mintMenu you should make sure to clean your Gconf entries for it. This will make you loose your mintMenu preferences but that’s the price to pay to get the clean new shiny version:
- Right click on mintMenu and remove it from the Gnome panel
- Open a terminal and type “gconftool-2 –recursive-unset /apps/mintMenu”
Once you’ve done that you can get mintMenu 4.1 from the Romeo repositories, or you can get the debs from here:
- http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/romeo/m/mintsystem/mintsystem_5.5_all.deb
- http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/romeo/m/mintmenu/mintmenu_4.1.2_all.deb
Once the installation is finished, you can right click on the Gnome panel and add mintMenu again.
Translations
mintMenu 4.1 is currently supporting English and French. Please help us translate it by following the instructions written on this forum thread:
http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=17836
Feedback and bugs
Please post comments here on the blog if you find bugs in mintMenu 4.1. Give us feedback also if you like it and if everything’s fine so we can eventually consider it stable and move it down to stable repositories.
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excelente.. but may i suggest that when i hit the ESC key, the menu close it self… i just don`t like to click on the desktop to close mintMenu.. that it… greate job mister clem
i think a screenshot will be great xD
It’d be nice if, when selecting a different image for the menu icon, the image was automatically scaled according to the past “Icon Size” paradigm. Right now, selecting an image larger than the width of the panel results in a large image cropped by the panel, and the “Icon Size” option does nothing to change its size.
Oh, and could the version number be included in the About dialog? It’s how I make sure I’m up to date in all my apps 🙂
i did it 🙂
just one small note: is it possible to publish the version number when you right-click on the mint-menu and click on About?
it would be a great help to have the details of the version when you click on About. not just for mint menu, but for all the mint softwares.
many thanks,
jungar
hahah .. dberg posted the exact same request as i have.. and in the same time too! creepy ;p
anyway, i hope clem gets the message.
keep up the good work 🙂
Excellent work! I can finally run the new mintInstall (for some odd reason it always started the old one up to now, despite the updates and reinstalls).
Anywho… I guess there has been a discussion about this already, but i really think the Title Case of the Menu Entries / Categories / mintMenuSpecificTags should be preserved for consistency if anything, all the applications make their entries in Title Case by default, application menus do so too (Firefox does, just checked), and it’s pretty much uniform as far as I can tell.. So no idea really why it got changed in the latest mintMenu.. If anything, it should be possible to change it back to title case at least..
Cheers!
” # The menu name used to be “Elyssa” and is now “Menu” by default ”
Mine is still Elyssa …. why is that? :s
ah yeah and the menu icon size is confirmed, doesn’t seem to be affected even when using the default icon, not a big deal, but i was used to a smaller one so kinda noticed it 😉
and i’m AAAAABSOLUTELY lovin the new mintInstall! good thing to finally catch up!
a little more spam lol 😉
i couldn’t find a mintInstall bug-report per-se thread, might annoy someone by posting offtopic here but i guess that will be the hotspot over the next few days so anyhow..
it’s a mintInstall thing, i’m lovin it did i mention 😀 however in the category list some of the categories and sub-categories seem to have a little offest on the left as if a space or two were inserted.. not sure if it’s only me or if it has some purpose but struck me as odd on first sight.. minor glitch, not a big deal but kinda stands out from the pure excellence that the rest is 😉
offtopic off:/
Because your old settings are still being used. If mintMenu was completely uninstalled and installed again, it would say “Menu” by default.
Hi Clem,
As always, thanks for your work.
The new Mint menu cannot launch some .desktop files that the default launcher can – both oddly enough, and produced by Adobe. They may have probs, but they do work with Gnome menu.
I’ve attached two .desktop files below…
First example: AdobeAIR.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Adobe AIR Application Installer
Comment=Adobe AIR Application Installer
GenericName=Adobe AIR Application Installer
MimeType=application/vnd.adobe.air-application-installer-package+zip;
Exec=”/usr/bin/Adobe AIR Application Installer”
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;
Terminal=false
Icon=AdobeAIR
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;XFCE;
Second example: PownceDesktop.1A618255CEB975BFC863E47CA16BCF2DEB687FD9.1.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Pownce
Comment=Pownce is a way to send stuff to your friends. What kind of stuff? You can send just about anything: music, photos, messages, links, events, and more.
GenericName=Pownce
Exec=”/opt/Pownce/Pownce”
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Icon=PownceDesktop.1A618255CEB975BFC863E47CA16BCF2DEB687FD9.1
StartupNotify=true
X-KDE-StartupNotify=true
Categories=Utility;
MimeType=
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;XFCE;
Also can MintMenu launch when the Windows key is pressed? This would make Mint better for my parents or wife.
Clem, I really like the refinements you have made to the mintMenu. I immediately noticed a difference with hovering the mouse over Places and System.I appreciate all of your efforts on the menu very much!
Xanikseo I followed exactly what the post said, what else should i do?
how do i know what version of mint menu i got?
and another thing… now when i click on Elyssa, then Software Manager (nothing opens)
i dont know why software manager isnt opening.
I forgot to mention how much I like “Software manager” under “System” in the menu. The integration with the new mintInstall really does a fantastic job of showing off this terrific and innovative tool.This is simply brilliant! It is my opinion that mintInstall is the best software management tool in existence and the menu integration provides an excellent means of making it easily accessible. Very good thinking and excellent work!
One more thing. The wording used in the new mintMenu certainly will make things more clear to new user’s. Someone that is new to Linux would not know that Synaptic is a package manager.
Thanks! But i want to keep the name Elyssa or whatever it’ll be called, i don’t want it to just be Menu 🙁
Great! 🙂 Now if there would be a translation system available for these components, that would be great!
Clem, please take a look at this thread:
http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=17468
Maybe you will make a decision that will help translating and maintaining the Linux Mint tools a lot easier. Many thanks for your committed work! 🙂 I’m a Mint fan since Bianca.
mintMenu is already very nice but adding keyboard shortcuts, so it can be accessed without a mouse, is definitely a good thing. As Mike MacCana said above, using the Windows key would be nice but if it can be configured it would really rock! 😀
Would it be possible to make it so the super key opens the Mint Menu? I like using the search feature to launch programs rather than searching through the menu.
Thanks!
Mike: We changed the default value to “Menu” but you can give the menu whatever name you want, open the preferences.
Kneekoo: A tool makes it easier to do that exact thing it’s developed for in the way that was envisioned by the developers. That’s good. It also reduces communication bandwidth and makes it harder to do everything else. I understand the problem here, you’ve got no easy way to discuss the quality of a translation, to reuse what’s already translated or even to get an idea on the status of the translations for a particular language/project. Launchpad would solve that of course, but it would also introduce other problems. I like what launchpad does and what it provides but I don’t like to be constrained by it, I don’t like not to be able to host it/backup it, I don’t like the way it defines projects and versions and in the end of the day I feel more inclined to develop my own solution than to fit my way of working into something I don’t like that much.. we did try Launchpad, I felt I had no control over it, I couldn’t delete my own actions, I relied on other people for common tasks, hell I couldn’t even set Mint as a distribution (seemingly it had to be a project). It helped a bit with bug tracking but to be honest it did reduce communication bandwidth as compared to the forums, and I found I was spending more time actually triaging bugs than fixing them. It evolved in the meantime so I’ll have another look at it but I’m pretty sure we won’t be using it.
All: I’ll try to implement the SUPER/Window_key shortcut, I agree, it’s a good idea. I’m not sure how to achieve that but I’ll look into it.
Re: Windows key: thanks Clem!
Re: MintMenu launcher bug: if the .desktop files aren’t enough, just install Adobe Air on Mint yourself. For some reason all it’s .desktops fail only in MintMenu.
Thank you for your answer, Clem. 🙂
I know a few things about Launchpad. I also left it behind almost two years ago when I worked on another project’s translation but since then it has evolved. However, the guys who posted in that forum thread I brought up also talked about Narro – apparently a similar system but slimmer and you can host it yourself. You could probably give it a try and see how it behaves.
About the SUPER/Windows_key I really hope you will manage to do that. 😉 Thank you for trying.
@ jungar:
use “$ apt-cache showpkg mintmenu” for installed version
haruspexed
this is what i got:
jungar@jungar-laptop ~ $ apt-cache showpkg mintmenu
Package: mintmenu
Versions:
4.1 (/var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_elyssa_romeo_binary-i386_Packages) (/var/lib/dpkg/status)
Description Language:
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_elyssa_romeo_binary-i386_Packages
MD5: 863720d0f234ce46c6161c38595d1b9e
4.0 (/var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_elyssa_main_binary-i386_Packages)
Description Language:
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_elyssa_main_binary-i386_Packages
MD5: 1fa10398f2f10be4a589a61547a2a951
Reverse Depends:
Dependencies:
4.1 – mintsystem (0 (null)) python (2 2.4) python (3 3) python-glade2 (0 (null)) python-gtk2 (0 (null))
4.0 – python (2 2.4) python (3 3) python-glade2 (0 (null)) python-gtk2 (0 (null))
Provides:
4.1 –
4.0 –
Reverse Provides:
——————————————–
I dont know why, when i click on Software Manager in mint menu, it doesnt open.
I still have Elyssa written on the mint menu .. instead of just “menu” as Clem stated should be.
@jungar: yes so you can see the latest version installed of mintmenu is 4.1 😉
@jungar: dont get me wrong, but are you sure you have mintinstall installed? ^^
Jungar: You probably missed the steps where you’re supposed to remove mintMenu from the panel and run “gconftool-2 –recursive-unset /apps/mintMenu”… as for finding the version you can type “apt show mintmenu | grep Version”
I don’t know why this blog shows it like that.. but — is actually a “double minus” as in “- -” without any space. So be carefull to put too dashes in “gconftool-2 –recursive-unset /apps/mintMenu”
Clem: in WordPress, wrap commands in pre tags tags.
Is there a way to make the search tool ignore the accents for words in french. It is very frustrating when let’s say I type “ecran” and it doesn’t show me the result “capture d’écran” and the opposite too.
my Software Manager link doesn’t work…
i’ve tried thge solutions proposed here and nothing worked…
Same here re: Software Manager
“I don’t know why this blog shows it like that.. but — is actually a “double minus” as in “- -” without any space. So be carefull to put too dashes in “gconftool-2 –recursive-unset /apps/mintMenu”
thanks Clem, that fixed the problem for me too!! Two hyphens instead of the long dash.
I like Mint Install changes. A few cosmetic things to finalise but otherwise okay.
Regards
John
Me too. Software Manager does nothing.
To get everything working make sure you’ve got the latest mintInstall (version 5.x) and make sure you’ve removed mintMenu from the panel before using gconftool-2 to recursive-unset your preferences.
clem, i followed exactly the steps you wrote at the start:
1) I removed mint menu (Elyssa)
2) i copied and pasted gconftool-2 –recursive-unset /apps/mintMenu into the terminal
3) i clicked on mint update … installed mint menu 4.1
4) right-cliked on panel .. then Add to Panel
5) I had 3 options: Main Menu , Menu Bar , mintmenu.
the Main Menu: gives me the (mint icon)
the mintmenu gives the the original mint menu with Elyssa written on it, instead of (Main) like you said.
so i dont know where i went wrong :r
ok.. it says i have mint
By default the name in the menu will be “Menu” but remember that the system will remember the last name you had, and it was ELYSSA. Maybe if u do a complet uninstall of the last mintmenu, you could get “MENU” like the label.
No, the problem is in step 3)… make sure to have a double dash in front of “recursive”.. as in “- -” without spaces.
Mathieu: I just released version 4.1.1, it ignores accentuation within the filter and should fix the problem you mentioned.
Clem: i did it 🙂 it’s working 🙂
merci
BUT … even after installing version 4.1.1 .. Software manager still isn’t opening when i click on it.
Jungar: Make sure you’ve got the latest mintInstall. check the Romeo section on http://packages.linuxmint.com
upgraded mintmenu to 4.1.1 and mintinstall to 5.3.1
software manager works ok now and lunches mintinstall
VERY nice, Clem. Great work.
YES! 🙂
everything is working fine!
thank you very much
beautiful work 🙂
New version: 4.1.2
– Adds support for 5 new languages (Catalan, Czech, Polish, Portuguese_Brazil and Turkish)
– Fixes a bug which prevented some CrossOver Office applications from being launched
I have installed the new KDE version of LinuxMint. Is there a way to switch to the regular KDE menue like it is in SuSE instead of the default one what get installed with LinuxMint ???
Installed the new MintMenu and MintInstall, and I must say I’m very impressed. Kudos to you, clem! 🙂
I just installed the new menu, and I love it. The issue about the image not resizing itself to the panel is a low priority to me. I just resized the image myself. Other than that everything is perfect. I personally like the fact that the super button doesn’t open up the menu. So maybe that could be an optional thing?
The new mintinstall is absolutely perfect. I say great job on this. Thank you for all the hard work you put into this.
Hi
I am new to Mint. As a Windows user -> it’s possible to add “create desktop shortcut” option to Mint menu ?
thx
I don’t like Drag&Drop 🙂
I am interested in the “super” shortcut to the menu, I wonder if it would be easier to implement a “super+tab” shortcut? That way you could still have your other “super” shortcuts (like “super+space” for Gnome-Do). I’ve used the “Keyboard Shortcuts” to assign “super+tab” shortcut to the panel menu, but I’d much rather have this for Mint Menu.