problem with qubes xfce menu

[haaber]

Hello,
I realise with surprise that some items in the "Q"-symbol that gives the
xfce menu have disappeared: the settings menu (!), the link to a dom0
termnal & the link to debian-8 template.

Is there a way to recreate these items? Bernhard

[cooloutac]

oh my... I;m not really sure hope someone replies.

[cooloutac]

On Thursday, March 9, 2017 at 3:04:34 PM UTC-5, haaber wrote:

what desktop you using? xfce try alt f3.

[haaber]

Hello cooloutac, that brings indeed the "application finder". But it
won't find the items I miss. For debian-8 I fear my endless attempts to
install debian-8-dvm as standard template (involving
virsh -c xen:/// undefine debian-8-dvm )
seems to have taken away the debian-8 out of the list. This is not the
most annoying. Qubes-VM-manager still sees it, so I can start & run a
command by hand. The missing dom0-console is more annoying (I can still
do Alt+F2 + xterm), but the missing xfce settings is really annoying.

Bernhard

[Unman]

Bernhard

To recreate the debian-8 menu you should be able to run
qvm-sync-appmenus. (You'll need to start the template first.)
This is referred to at www.qubes-os.org/doc/managing-appvm-shortcuts

There have been numerous threads about using and abusing the menu
system in xfce - please search and read them before posting here.

[cooloutac]

main problem with xfce menu editor is it doesn't let you "abuse" it lol. like creating or deleting new entries. Which would be much easier then editing some files like a developer.

Would that command also help other default shortcuts like shortcut for dom0 desktop settings?

[cooloutac]

Actually I gotta say Bernhard if that happened to me I would freak the heck out and probably reinstall the whole system from another iso. Do you know how it happened or what you were doing possibly cuased it, if I'm understanding you correctly? You are missing the settings shortcut? Were you tinkering with anything?

[haaber]

On 03/10/2017 08:05 PM, cooloutac wrote:
>>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>> I realise with surprise that some items in the "Q"-symbol that gives the
>>>>>> xfce menu have disappeared: the settings menu (!), the link to a dom0
>>>>>> termnal & the link to debian-8 template.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Is there a way to recreate these items? Bernhard
>>>>>
>>>

>>> To recreate the debian-8 menu you should be able to run
>>> qvm-sync-appmenus. (You'll need to start the template first.)
>>> This is referred to at www.qubes-os.org/doc/managing-appvm-shortcuts
>>>
>>> There have been numerous threads about using and abusing the menu
>>> system in xfce - please search and read them before posting here.
>>
>> main problem with xfce menu editor is it doesn't let you "abuse" it lol. like creating or deleting new entries. Which would be much easier then editing some files like a developer.
>>
>> Would that command also help other default shortcuts like shortcut for dom0 desktop settings?
>
> Actually I gotta say Bernhard if that happened to me I would freak the heck out and probably reinstall the whole system from another iso. Do you know how it happened or what you were doing possibly cuased it, if I'm understanding you correctly? You are missing the settings shortcut? Were you tinkering with anything?

This is not the only 'strange' thing, and I wait the first occasion of 1
day without anything good to do to reinstall everything. Hope this
happens before Q4 comes out .. I already tested emergency backup of
data, via a live-usb key break-in into my crypto-descs. Knowing that I
am able to do that is relaxing a lot :)

So: Unman's command worked for debian menu item, but it does not work
for dom0.
Would be too easy! But he pointed a page to read, so I rtfm.

Thnaks a lot, guys! Bernhard

[Unman]

Hello Berhard,

I should apologise for the tone of my last email to you, which was
pretty short. It was the end of a stressful day.

Xfce menus are (relatively) easy to understand.

There are environment variables that are important:
you can see these by running 'env|grep XDG' in dom0.
XDG_DATA_DIRS, XDG_MENU_PREFIX and XDG_CONFIG_DIRS are important in this
context.

My guess is that you have CONFIG_DIRS at /etc/xdg.
That mean that your menus are sourced from /etc/xdg/menus.
If XDG_MENU_PREFIX is xfce- then the main menu will be at
/etc/xdg/menus/xfce-applications.menu

None of the other files in that directory matter for the moment.
Menus are built by combining the contents of .desktop files, and a bit
of magic to group them together. It's the .desktop files that are
important.
These are found (among other places) in XDG_DATA_DIRS - usually
/usr/share/applications and /usr/local/share/applications

If ALL your dom0 entries have disappeared then I suspect that the desktop
files have been deleted from those directories, or moved.

So, have a look in /usr//share/applications - there should be many
.desktop files.

If there aren't all is not lost - you can look for them using 'find -name
*desktop' as root - I'd look in /lib., /usr and /var.
NB Dont get excited about any desktop files you see in xfce/helpers -
those aren't what you want.
What you want are files that aren't prefixed "qubes", but just say (e.g
xfce4-terminal.desktop) If you find one open it in a text editor and
make sure that it contains a line "Exec "

If you have a fedora template then you could look in the
/etc/share/applications folder there, find the desktop files you want and
copy them to dom0. There isn't a simple way of doing this but there is a
guide here:
www.qubes-os.org/doc/copy-from-dom0/

Alternatively, reinstalling the packages you are concerned about should,
I think, reinstate the desktop files.
sudo dnf reinstall <package>

Or you could write your own .desktop file, or search for one on the web.
If you are really stuck I can send you some.

Note that you don't need ALL the shortcuts for dom0, because you
wouldn't/shouldn't be running programs there- so you only need menu
entries for the programs that you do need - probably terminal and
Settings manager.

Once you have the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications, the menu
entries should reappear - you can force this by running "xfdesktop
--reload", or by logging out and logging back in.

I hope this is of some help. If you need further help let us know.

unman

[haaber]

On 03/11/2017 01:44 PM, Unman wrote:
>>>>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>>>> I realise with surprise that some items in the "Q"-symbol that gives the
>>>>>>>> xfce menu have disappeared: the settings menu (!), the link to a dom0
>>>>>>>> termnal & the link to debian-8 template.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Is there a way to recreate these items? Bernhard
>>>>>>>
>

> Hello Bernhard,

>
> I should apologise for the tone of my last email to you, which was
> pretty short. It was the end of a stressful day.

I read your very detailed and patient answers on this list for a while,
and this last one is another example. Thanks! You see, you were right, I
did not search profoundly before filling up your mailboxes with my
question. Meanwhile I did, yet without success. The log-in-logout trick
does not work.

> If ALL your dom0 entries have disappeared then I suspect that the desktop
> files have been deleted from those directories, or moved.
> So, have a look in /usr//share/applications - there should be many
> .desktop files.

There is not a single one. Strange. I had a battery failure with several
unwanted hard power-offs. Maybe orphaned inodes were removed when
rebooting? At least we have localized my problem :)

> If there aren't all is not lost - you can look for them using 'find -name
> *desktop' as root - I'd look in /lib., /usr and /var.

> What you want are files that aren't prefixed "qubes", but just say (e.g
> xfce4-terminal.desktop) If you find one open it in a text editor and
> make sure that it contains a line "Exec "

no *xfce*.desktop file in /var or /lib. I have 6 such files in /usr , 3
of which contain the word "exec":

I have no sdt fedora left over, only cloned & enriched specialized
f-24-minimals.
As you said, for dom0 I only need xfce4-terminal.desktop (no copy left
apart "helpers") and xfce4-settings-manager.desktop (no copy either).

> Alternatively, reinstalling the packages you are concerned about should,
> I think, reinstate the desktop files.
> sudo dnf reinstall <package>

I accumulate problems, it seems:
[me@dom0] sudo dnf reinstall xfce4-settings-qubes
Failed to synchronize cache for repo 'qubes-dom0-cached', disabling.
Installed package xfce4-settings-qubes-3.2.2-1.fc23.x86_64 (from
anaconda) not available.
Error: Nothing to do.

> Or you could write your own .desktop file, or search for one on the web.
> If you are really stuck I can send you some.

Or I follow Raahelps comment and reinstall everything :) In the
meanwhile xfce4-terminal.desktop would be nice to have (could you send
it as PM, please)? I don't really need the settings menu - and in case I
should be able to run it from the command line, don't I? But I can't
live without a terminal.

Bernhard