IntroductionTable of Contents
KMenuEdit allows editing the menu of KDE application launchers.
KMenuEdit can be started either by mouse button clicking the application launcher
button on the panel and choosing , or
by typing kmenuedit in the KRunner line.
KMenuEdit allows you to:
View and edit the menu used by the current application launcher
, and submenus and items
Create and delete submenus and items
Change the order of submenus and items
Hide items and add new submenus and items
By default all applications installed on the computer appear in the application launchers menu of all users. Applications may appear more than once in several different menus. Empty submenu categories defined in the desktop menu specification will show up as well, but are not visible in application launchers unless you install applications belonging to these categories.
The tree view has two different entry types:
Submenu: Only Name, Comment and Description fields and the button to select an icon are enabled, the Advanced tab is disabled. Any submenu can hold additional submenus and/or items.
Items: Use this entry to enter the data for the application you want to add. For detailed information see Using KMenuEdit.
KMenuEdit has two tree view modes - normal and with hidden entries. To see the latter check the option Show hidden entries in the configuration dialog on the General options page.
Many additional entries appear in hidden view mode in the tree. Several hidden entries seem to be just duplicates but have different command options. Usually you should never change these hidden entries or you risk to break some functionality of the system.
In hidden mode you will have a special submenu .hidden [Hidden] as top level item in the tree. This special submenu is not editable. In this submenu all deleted items will be shown at the next start of KMenuEdit.
It is not possible to delete entries using the GUI in this special submenu. They will reappear at the next start of KMenuEdit.
This should be done in hidden view mode where only the submenus and items visible in the application launcher menu are displayed.
By default the menu is sorted alphabetically using the English names or descriptions. Using another language than English some submenus and items therefore will appear in an unsorted order.
Use the options in → to sort either by name or description. If you use the classic application launcher you have to select the corresponding Format option in the settings dialog. In the Kickoff launcher check Show applications by name if you sort them by name here.
Grouping your frequently used submenus or items together e.g. at the top of the menu makes selecting them easier. To change the order of particular items or submenus in the tree use the or button in the toolbar or these actions in the menu.
All application launchers will use the order of submenus defined in KMenuEdit.
Having shown all applications installed on a computer may be confusing for some users so you may want to hide some less frequently used items or submenus. There are two different ways to do that:
Switch to normal view mode without hidden entries. If you delete items they are moved to the .hidden [Hidden] submenu. You can move them back into the tree to have them in the menu again.
If you delete a submenu it will be really deleted with all its submenus and items.
To recreate them you can use → , but this will remove all your custom submenus and items
and the corresponding .desktop files are deleted too. This action cannot be reverted.
The preferred way to remove submenus and items in the menu of an application launcher is to check Hidden entry on the General tab and switch to the hidden view mode. In this mode it is easy to revert changes without destroying the menu structure. The only drawback is that you have to hide all entries in a submenu manually to hide the whole submenu from the view.
To add custom items (submenu or item) use the actions in the menu or toolbar. Items need a Name and a Command, without a command entry an item will not be saved and your addition gets lost.
If you add an entry it is inserted as sub entry at the actual highlighted position in the tree. Move an entry by dragging it with the mouse or using the button to the bottom of the tree to make it a top level entry.
There is no way to transfer menu settings using the GUI, you have to do that manually and copy the following files to the target user:
KMenuEdit stores the menu hierarchy in
menus/applications-kmenuedit.menu in the folder $(qtpaths --paths
GenericConfigLocation)
and desktop-directories in the folder $(qtpaths --paths
GenericDataLocation) contains desktop files for submenus you created.
In applications/ in the folder $(qtpaths --paths
GenericDataLocation) you find the desktop files for the custom items you created.
The shortcuts for each application are stored in kglobalshortcutsrc
in the folder $(qtpaths --paths GenericConfigLocation),
but export/import does not work because the UUIDs of the shortcuts do not match up between systems, even though the
.desktop files are the same. You have to assign all shortcuts manually again.