New Icewm Desktop And Menu Solutions, Scriptpack included Options

[ZDevil]

AmigaFalcon has asked some good questions about the desktop icon and program menu settings in IceWM which is the default WM in my rootfs tarball. I reposted here for easy reference.

Q1: A few applications, such as XMMS and Dillio, etc are nowhere to be seen in the program launcher/taskbar. I have to execute these apps from the command line instead. Infact, very few apps (system file browsers, word processors, etc) are visible from the application launch menu - which is surprising considering how large the Rootfs is. I guess they are all hidden somewhere on the drive? Again, is this standard for this distro?

A1: There are several solutions:
Solution 1: Edit "~/.icewm/menu" and add whatever you want there. A tedious way.
Solution 2: Install a program call "menu" and run "update-menus". But the result is less than satifactory as there are too many trivial folders and categories and duplicated entries.
Solution 3: Add "icewm-menu-gnome2" in ~/.icewm/menu . See http://myy.helia.fi/~karte/icewm.html for instructions. But again I find the menu generated not so optimal.
Solution 4: Use this "icewm_meuntools" scriptpack which is a slightly modified and enhanced version of Meanie's tools in pdaXii. Extract the tarball somewhere, then enter the extracted "icewm_menutools_0.1a" directory, and run "./install.sh" there. A few seconds later you'll see a new IceWM menu with program icons sorted, plus a few goodies. smile.gif


Q2 There are no app links setup on the desktop, no access to any GUI Filebrowser on desktop (or even in the app launcher) , etc unlike distros such as PdaXRom where everything is immediately accessible...

A2: Again there are several solutions.
Solution 1: Use Rox desktop, just like in pdaXrom. See here for how to install it: http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/rox.htm
Solution 2: Use idesk, and it requires manual editing of the config file. Just "apt-get install idesk". See http://idesk.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page for how to set up the menu file.
Solution 3: Use pcmanfm. Go to "Preferences > Desktop", then check "Show file icons on desktop". You can also set desktop wallpaper there (but I find it slower than using icewmbg directly). Also add "pcmanfm &" in .xinitrc, above the line "icewm-session".

This post has been edited by ZDevil: Mar 29 2008, 03:49 AM

Reason for edit: Update attachment