ubuntu studio menu items disappear after adding new launcher

Got back to default menus by restoring ~/.config/menus/xfce-applications.menu from ubuntustudio-default-settings package. Attached is the "corrupt" xfce-applications.menu file.

from the looks of it, ubuntu studio moves <DefaultMergeDirs /> to the end of the menu file to avoid a bug in XFCE.

Menulibre moves it right back up, resulting in the problem described. It is fixed when the tag is moved back between the <Layout /> and <Menu /> near the end of the file.

(this is also a workaround)

Can u please elobrate

Report it the Upstreeam

Why do you think it's an upstream issue? It sounds like it's a problem with ubuntustudio-menu. Can you please elaborate what upstream project you think it belongs to?

In 16.04 this bug is still there! Fresh install.

In my case, Ubuntu Studio categories (Audio Production, Graphic Design, and Video Production) and others disappeared after hiding Education category. It was the first thing I edited.

I'm attaching xcfe-applications.menu in the state it was left after failing to hide only Education category, and also a snapshot of the menu hiding by mistake the mentioned categories.

Here's the snapshot of the menu hiding erroneously the mentioned categories after it was set to hide only Education category.

I've tried the workaround proposed here by autumna (https://launchpad.net/~autumna) and didn't work for me:
"It is fixed when the tag is moved back between the <Layout /> and <Menu /> near the end of the file."
As you can see in my attachment, <Layout /> now is </ Layout>, <Menu /> now is </ Menu>, and they are still together but in the beginning of the file, not near the end.

I've also tried the fix proposed in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/garcon/+bug/1213518 :
"This can be corrected by moving the <DefaultMergeDirs/> line to the second last line just one line bfore the very last </Menu> line."
This didn't work for me.

I guess I'll have to find the way to restore xcfe-applications.menu and remember not to edit the Menu until this get fixed.

It seems menulibre uses the system menufile /etc/xdg/menus/xfce-applications.menu rather than the file pointed to by session which is /etc/xdg/xdg-ubuntustudio/menus/xfce-applications.menu. This is the file the session runs on and whisker and the application menu use. menulibre does not use this.

Also menulibre makes it's own whole new menu spec rather than just changing the parts of the menu you ask for. This is just wrong. I would suggest either doing these changes by hand or using alacart (alacart has problems as well) Ubuntustudio should remove menulibre from it's list of applications.

Thanks, Len!
It took me 3 hours to discover by myself what you told so clearly. Using Alacarte option to "Restore System Configuration" restored my menu.
I agree with you, ubuntu studio should remove menulibre.

apt install alacarte

ubuntustudio-meta (0.156) yakkety; urgency=medium

  * Refreshed dependencies
  * Added calibre to publishing-recommends
  * Added dgedit to audio-recommends
  * Added dispcalgui to photography-recommends
  * Added drumgizmo to audio-recommends
  * Added gpick to graphics-recommends
  * Added pdfshuffler to publishing-recommends
  * Added plume-creator to publishing-recommends
  * Added vokoscreen to video-recommends
  * Removed fonts-mgopen from fonts-recommends
  * Removed gnome-color-manager from photography-recommends
  * Removed gtk-recordmydesktop from video-recommends
  * Removed menulibre from desktop-recommends
  * Removed recordmydesktop from video-recommends

 -- Adam Conrad <email address hidden> Tue, 16 Aug 2016 03:19:03 -0600

Fresh install of Ubuntu Studio 16.04. Installed tuxguitar and moved the launcher from "Video Production" to "Audio Production". The menu items for Video Production, Graphic Design etc disappeared. The applications weren't even listed under "All".

Fixed it using Alacarte.

I'm runnin version 16.04 XCFE 4.12 distributed by XUBUNTU.

I had the same issues with the disappearing menu items after I had changed a few items such as installing GNURadio,Python, QT-5, Kicad and other applications such as the Libre Office Suite.

Then most of the menu items vanished to just a few default items such as system utilities Very few applications remained. They showed up in the software loader as installed but not in any menus.

Application Categories were gone as well.

FIX:
Used Panel editor to apply the fix as posted above by-
(Jon Holstrom (7-jon-r) wrote on 2016-06-27:) with one exception.

Loaded the original package menu file from "/etc/xdg/menus/xfce-applications.menu"
It loaded all of the UBUNTU STUDIO package menu categories and all additional applications were also shown in the menu.

Same thing just happened to me, running UbuntuStudio 17.10 (installed 2 months ago).
Please note I never actually tried to edit the menu -- it did it by itself.
Fixed it switching to 'alacarte' for menu editing and restoring system configuration.
The 'Publishing' menu seems to be gone, however -- don't remember if it was there in the first place though.

On Fri, 2 Mar 2018, Thomas Meyssonnier wrote:

> Same thing just happened to me, running UbuntuStudio 17.10 (installed 2 months ago).
> Please note I never actually tried to edit the menu -- it did it by itself.
> Fixed it switching to 'alacarte' for menu editing and restoring system configuration.
> The 'Publishing' menu seems to be gone, however -- don't remember if it was there in the first place though.

Menulibre should not be used on ubuntustudio, it does not deal with the
system menu configuration files correctly. It uses the default menu
template as it's base rather than what the system happens to be using. I
personally feel ubuntustudio should not ship any menu editor as alacarte,
while it does work ok, still does not do the whole job. Menu configuration
as actually quite complex and a menu editor is almost impossible to
properly test. Unfortunately menulibre replaces the whole system menu with
it's own (wrong) version. Even if it was right, any addition or change to
the system menu after that will not show up either (such as adding wine).

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net

Use alacarte's "restore" button

Details below

https://askubuntu.com/questions/795431/ubuntu-studio-menu-audio-video-production-graphics-directory-menu-entry-disapp