How can I add items to Xfce root menu?

Question

I'd like to add some items to my Xfce "root menu", see picture for location:

Searching the web gave a couple of possibilities (different XML files etc), but it appears that Xubuntu has customized it quite a bit. Maybe I just overlooked the settings? I also tried LXmenueditor, which does not access the root menus.

Where is the location of the configs for Xubuntu? Would it be possible to get stock-Xfce right click-on-desktop functionality without breaking anything? By that I mean: right click on desktop and have the Xfce menu instead of going through Xubuntu's submenu to access it.

Thanks for your time!

Solution 1

versions 11.04 - 13.10

As the picture shows - "test" is a root menu which has been added.

To do this will require a couple of folders to be created:

mkdir -p ~/.config/menus
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications

Next copy the standard menu template file into the local menus folder

cp /etc/xdg/xdg-xubuntu/menus/* ~/.config/menus

Note - the stock XFCE menu could also be used - I prefer this menu so I've used it in my example:

cp /etc/xdg/menus/* ~/.config/menus

Now create our test menu - its in .desktop file-format

leafpad ~/.local/share/applications/test.desktop

copy and paste the following:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=test
Comment=
Icon=acroread
Exec=acroread
Path=
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=false
Categories=X-Xfce-Toplevel;

The important bit is the last line - it must have X-Xfce-Toplevel as a category

Edit our custom menu:

leafpad ~/.config/menus/xfce-applications.menu

Add a new entry as shown:

Finally - lets use the custom menu file:

Right click Start and choose properties:

Choose the custom menu option and navigate and select the custom menu file ~/.config/menus/xfce-applications.menu

Solution 2

If you're using 4.10 or 4.12, then you can edit the Menu using alacarte (screenshot) or menulibre.

You may also have a more dynamic menu experience if you were using xfce4-whiskermenu.

See also:

• How can I add and change items in my Applications Menu?
• How can I have a dash-like search under Xfce?

Comments

[EsmaeelE]

use menulibre, sudo apt install menulibre

[marto]

that menu I want to change, even if your option is activated it shows the xfce menu as a submenu

[marto]

Awesome, thx! Would you happen to know how I can get rid of the Menu on Desktop?

[marto]

Nevermind! To use just the root menu, I disabled the Desktop Icons in desktop-settings. Thanks again

[landroni]

-1. The answer is not helpful with respect to the question.

[marto]

Whiskermenu is good, but this topic was about the "root" menu / Desktop Menu

[marto]

Not sure why, but after some reinstall changes with alacarte did not apply to any menu.

[marto]

4.10. Alacarte shows options to edit/add menus, but does not apply changes. I must add that my system is pretty messy (transformed ubuntu install to xubuntu, added gnome-shell and i3 etc) - maybe something broke along the way

[landroni]

I think alacarte applies changes automatically when you hit close. Try again. Perhaps try to use a Custom menu file: copy the default file to a different location, and edit that. I suspect that it should work.