PND system is crocked (New user)

[younghifi]

Minimenu is a bit bonked as of Zaxxon Beta 3 and 4. PNDs placed in desktop or menu folders show up both in XFCE and minimenu.


The "mmenu" folder is ignored totally.

I don't know about mmenu and SuperZaxxon since you're not specific on what's happening for you (it should cause it to not show up in XFCE at all, only in MiniMenu), but I'm pretty sure putting a PND in /desktop or /menu also causing it to show up in MiniMenu is intended behavior. You control what you see in MiniMenu with MiniMenu's option to show/hide apps (though this doesn't work perfectly in HF6 at least; it doesn't seem to affect the "all" tab) rather than the directory structure.


I'm pretty sure it's intended behavior because otherwise it wouldn't be possible to have an app show up in both XFCE and MiniMenu without also cluttering your desktop with icons you never use (or, in the case of some, cluttering up the XFCE menu with items you never use).

Sorry for not being very specific here. I wrote about my issues in more details in some other threads:

Minimenu doesn't detect PND files in my SD card's /pandora/mmenu/ directory, but it detects PNDs in /pandora/apps/ just fine. I think this is because my SD card has a custom directory name (ie. it isn't denoted as /media/mmcblk0p1/ or /media/mmcblk1p1/).


EDIT: I have tried rescanning applications multiple times, always with the same results.

I have the same issue. I don't think it's because of the SD card's label, although I haven't checked this yet.


I think it's more of an issue of minimenu configuration.


Notice that in the /etc/pandora/conf/mmenu.conf file in Beta 3 it's set to look for PNDs also in desktop and menu folders, which is kind of a contrary behavior to what's stated in the wiki.


I don't know how it has been in previous releases of the OS as I've got my Pandora just 2 days ago and flashed it to Beta 3 right on the spot.


After some fiddling with the settings in the .conf file, I managed to make minimenu discover PNDs located in /pandora/mmenu folder, although it still discovers apps located in /pandora/desktop and /pandora/menu folders (even when I disable it in the .conf file).


Does nobody else think of this as an issue or do you guys just keep everything in /pandora/apps and don't care?

2. Make a /pandora folder on your SD card, and inside that create subfolders /desktop, /menu, /mmenu, and /apps. Explanation of these folders:


- PND files in /desktop appear on the XFCE desktop


- PND files in /menu appear in the XFCE menu


- PND files in /mmenu appear in Minimenu only


- PND files in /apps appear in both Minimenu, and on the XFCE desktop


3. Get your apps from http://repo.openpandora.org (to start with, anyway. It's the primary location for up to date releases. There are other sources, worry about them later.)


That's it really. Drop your PNDs into the folder that suits you. And a couple of extra tips:

I think it's worth noting that this folder structure and PND auto-discovery doesn't really work like you wrote Gruso. At least not in the latest Super Zaxxons (tried in Betas 3 and 4).


At least for me it doesn't. I feel kinda awkward writing about this because it's not the first time I note on this issue on the boards, still got no answers, so I'm starting to feel like only I have this problem


Currently for me it works like so:


- PND files in /desktop appear on the XFCE desktop and in minimenu


- PND files in /menu appear in the XFCE menu and in minimenu


- PND files in /mmenu appear nowhere


- PND files in /apps appear in both Minimenu, and on the XFCE desktop


PS:


If one of the mods thinks that this post qualifies for it's own thread then please move it out of here.

I hope this helps


If it is indeed an intended behaviour, that PNDs from practically every "standard" folder apper in minimenu, then I think it should be noted so in the wiki.


I know that you can configure minimenu so that it doesn't look in the other folders, but currently such setting makes the interface practically devoid of PNDs, as it doesn't look into it's own "mmenu" folder at all.

 

[diligentcircle]

I know that you can configure minimenu so that it doesn't look in the other folders, but currently such setting makes the interface practically devoid of PNDs, as it doesn't look into it's own "mmenu" folder at all.

Well, since apparently /mmenu is broken in SuperZaxxon, you'll have to put the PNDs in one of the other folders then (probably either /menu or /desktop, whichever one bothers you less). But there's no need to do what you seem to be describing; like I said, there's an option in MiniMenu which allows you to specifically set what shows up and what doesn't (though it doesn't seem to have an effect on the "All" tab in HF6; I don't know if this was fixed in SuperZaxxon, or if it was intended). You should use this to control what shows up in MiniMenu.

 

[younghifi]

Well, since apparently /mmenu is broken in SuperZaxxon, you'll have to put the PNDs in one of the other folders then (probably either /menu or /desktop, whichever one bothers you less).

What do you think? That's what I've been doing since I got my Pandora

But there's no need to do what you seem to be describing; like I said, there's an option in MiniMenu which allows you to specifically set what shows up and what doesn't (though it doesn't seem to have an effect on the "All" tab in HF6; I don't know if this was fixed in SuperZaxxon, or if it was intended). You should use this to control what shows up in MiniMenu.

Tried that, didn't do the job.


Funny thing is, I think that as of yet nobody said as to why is it so and not otherwise in SuperZaxxon. That's the mind boggle

 

[skeezix]

Regarding apps stuff into SD/pandora/mmenu not showing up in SuperZaxxon b1-b4, it should be sorted for b5; one of the big changes to minimenu lately was for it to rely on .desktop files spit out by pndnotifyd instead of scanning on its own (having two applciations doing the same scan is sort of redundant, but the original goal of minimenu was not to rely on other components at all, if we wanted to go with a super minimal system.. but we've not done much of that lately.) Anyway so minimenu has been changed (its all configurable) to rely on pndnotifyd doing the scanning .. but pndnotifyd (which is for minimenu, xfce, other desktops) doesn't scan the mmenu directory, since that was private for minimenu before.


'mmenu' app path exists so that you can have 'minimenu specific' applications (that do not otherwise show up in xfce etc.) It was originally an undocumented little addition I put in, but turned out useful so we opened it up.


So I'm mulling it over..


-- have minimenu do its own pnd-scan on the mmenu directory (if it exists), which is a speed hit for minimenu startup (not a big hit, unless you put a pile of apps there)


-- add mmenu to the pndnotifyd scan, and somehow flag those .desktops to not show up in xfce


-- just drop the mmenu bit entirely, since its not so much necessary (ie: with minimenu and xfce (etc) all using the same category system, why not have them all show the same apps.. 'mmenu specific' apps aren't very common


I'll probably build in (configurable) the first one -- so that it works for people who are already using it, but won't be a problem for people who aren't.


In general, most people just stick everything into /pandora/apps or /pandora/menu (I think.)


jeff


pndnotifyd for those not on the tech size, is the system service that looks at all your pnd-files, and spits out .desktop files for the Desktop Environments; a .desktop file is just the information about an application.. where to find its icon, what category its in, what its name is, that sort of thing. So pndnotifyd scans on boot (or on SD insert/eject or downlaod of fresh app) to figure out apps to show in the various menus; mmenu used to do the same thing by itself, but to speed things up for mmenu users, I just made it (configurably) use the .desktop scan done by pndnotifyd, but if we like, we can have it do manual scans of its own as well.