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<title>Debian Menu System - Menu from the viewpoint of a user</title>

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<link href="ch1.html" rel="chapter" title="1 Introduction">
<link href="ch2.html" rel="chapter" title="2 Menu from the viewpoint of a user">
<link href="ch3.html" rel="chapter" title="3 The menu file">
<link href="ch4.html" rel="chapter" title="4 What packages with applications should do">
<link href="ch5.html" rel="chapter" title="5 What packages with menu managers should do">
<link href="ch6.html" rel="chapter" title="6 How a user can override the menus">
<link href="ch7.html" rel="chapter" title="7 The internals of the menu package">
<link href="ch8.html" rel="chapter" title="8 Variables and functions in the install-menu scripts">
<link href="ch2.html#s2.1" rel="section" title="2.1 How/when do the window manager startup files get created?">
<link href="ch2.html#s2.2" rel="section" title="2.2 Tuning of the generated window manager startup files">
<link href="ch2.html#s2.3" rel="section" title="2.3 Optimization of menu tree: hints">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.1" rel="section" title="3.1 Location">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.2" rel="section" title="3.2 Syntax">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.3" rel="section" title="3.3 The title field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.4" rel="section" title="3.4 The needs field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.5" rel="section" title="3.5 The section field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.6" rel="section" title="3.6 The command field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.7" rel="section" title="3.7 The icon field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.8" rel="section" title="3.8 The hints field">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.9" rel="section" title="3.9 Entries for menu sections.">
<link href="ch3.html#s3.10" rel="section" title="3.10 Fvwm's task and title bars">
<link href="ch4.html#s4.1" rel="section" title="4.1 Providing a menu file">
<link href="ch4.html#s4.2" rel="section" title="4.2 Adding a hook for dpkg in your packages">
<link href="ch6.html#s6.1" rel="section" title="6.1 Configuring the menus">
<link href="ch6.html#s6.2" rel="section" title="6.2 Specifying that a menu entry should not be displayed">
<link href="ch6.html#s6.3" rel="section" title="6.3 Including other files">
<link href="ch7.html#s7.1" rel="section" title="7.1 The update-menus program">
<link href="ch7.html#s7.2" rel="section" title="7.2 The install-menu program">
<link href="ch7.html#s7.3" rel="section" title="7.3 The install-menu config script definitions">
<link href="ch7.html#s7.4" rel="section" title="7.4 Hints, tree optimization">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.1" rel="section" title="8.1 String constants">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.2" rel="section" title="8.2 Variables">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.3" rel="section" title="8.3 Functions">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.2.1" rel="subsection" title="8.2.1 Special variables">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.2.2" rel="subsection" title="8.2.2 Preferred variables">
<link href="ch8.html#s8.2.3" rel="subsection" title="8.2.3 Suggested variables">

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<h1>
Debian Menu System
<br>Chapter 2 - Menu from the viewpoint of a user
</h1>

<hr>

<hr>

<h2><a name="s2.1"></a>2.1 How/when do the window manager startup files get created?</h2>

<p>
Basically, users don't need to know any of how and when the startup files are
created, but they might be interested to know anyway.
</p>

<p>
When a package that wants to add something to the menu tree gets installed, it
will run <code>update-menus</code> in its <code>postinst</code> script.
Update-menus then reads in all menu files in <code>/etc/menu/</code>,
<code>/usr/lib/menu</code>, <code>/usr/share/menu</code> and
<code>/usr/share/menu/default</code>, and stores the menu entries of all
installed packages in memory.  Once that has been done, it will run the
menu-methods in <code>/etc/menu-methods/*</code>, 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
<code>/etc/menu-methods/</code>.  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 <code>install-menu</code> program.
This program can generate the startupfiles for just about every window manager.
</p>

<hr>

<h2><a name="s2.2"></a>2.2 Tuning of the generated window manager startup files</h2>

<p>
In principle this is a very window-manager specific business.  But for all
window managers (and others) applies:
</p>

<p>
The file to attack is the menu-method in <code>/etc/menu-methods/$wm</code>,
with <samp>$wm</samp> the name of your window manager.  However, if this
menu-method <samp>!include</samp>-s the <code>menu.h</code> file (as it
should), you can also edit that file, to make your changes work for every
installed window manager.
</p>

<p>
If the menu-method file of your window manager does <samp>!include</samp> the
<code>menu.h</code> file, and makes proper use of the definitions in there,
then you can look at the comments in that <code>menu.h</code> file to see how
you can make minor adjustments to the look of your menus in your window
manager.
</p>

<p>
To generally change the menu tree, see the next section.
</p>

<hr>

<h2><a name="s2.3"></a>2.3 Optimization of menu tree: hints</h2>

<p>
If <samp>hint_optimize=true</samp> has been set in a menu-method script
(actually, that definition should appear in the <samp>!include</samp>-ed
<samp>menu.h</samp> 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 <samp>hints_nentry=...</samp>).  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 menu
speeds up 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.
</p>

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<p>
Debian Menu System
</p>

<address>
version 1.4, 10 November 2011<br>
<br>
Joost Witteveen <code><a href="mailto:joostje@debian.org">joostje@debian.org</a></code><br>
Joey Hess <code><a href="mailto:joeyh@debian.org">joeyh@debian.org</a></code><br>
Christian Schwarz <code><a href="mailto:schwarz@debian.org">schwarz@debian.org</a></code><br>
Bill Allombert <code><a href="mailto:ballombe@debian.org">ballombe@debian.org</a></code><br>
<br>
</address>
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