MENUFILE(5)

NAME
menufile - entry in the Debian menu system

SYNOPSIS
~/.menu/*

/etc/menu/*

/usr/lib/menu/*

/usr/share/menu/*

/usr/share/menu/default/*

DESCRIPTION
Menu files add entries to the Debian menu system. The system administrator can place menu files in /etc/menu/ to override menu files that packages add to /usr/share/menu/. The user can place menu files in ~/.menu/ to override all other menu files.

Please read the Debian menu manual available in /usr/share/doc/menu/html for the complete specification of menu files.

The menu files are usually named after the Debian package that contains the programs listed in them. In it, you can list several "menu entries" that specify a specific item in the menu structure. Each menu entry specifies which packages it depends on; if that package are not installed, the menu entry will be ignored by update-menus(1). (In a menu entry you can specify pseudo-packages that start with "local."; update-menus will always use those menu entries). If you wish to remove an item from the menu entirely, make an empty menu file with the same name as the file you want to override.

Examples
Dosemu could install the following menu file as /usr/share/menu/dosemu:

 ?package(dosemu):needs="text" section="Applications/Emulators" \
title="Dosemu" command="dosemu"
 ?package(dosemu):needs="X11" section="Applications/Emulators" \
title="Dosemu" command="xdos"

The system administrator wants to override this file to change how dosemu is run, so /etc/menu/dosemu is created:

 ?package(dosemu):needs="text" section="Applications/Emulators" \
title="Dosemu" command="dosemu -A"
 ?package(dosemu):needs="X11"  section="Applications/Emulators" \
title="Dosemu" command="xdos -A"

A user does not want Dosemu to appear in the menus at all, so the user creates an empty file named ~/.menu/dosemu.

FORMAT
A menu file consists of 0 or more lines of the following format:

    ?package(package-name):var1=value1 var2=value2 ...

    needs
        Specify what kind of environment the program require. This variable must be defined, and should be one of the following:

        needs="text"
            Program requires a terminal

        needs="x11"
            Program requires a X server

        needs="vc"
            Program requires a Linux console (i.e.: svgalib programs)

        needs="wm"
            The program is a window manager.

        needs="fvwmmodule"
            The program is a fvwm compatible module.

    section
        The section in which the menu entry should appear. See MENU LAYOUT for preferred section names.

    icon
        An icon for this menu entry. If no icon is available, just don't define this.

    title
        The title of the program that will appear on the menus. Keep it short. If two menu entries share the same title and section, the one that best fits the available display will be used. So in the example above with two menu entries that both have the menu id "title", if X is available, the X11 one will be used; otherwise the text one will be used. Must be defined.

    command
        The command to be executed when this menu entry is selected.

    hints
        A comma-separated list of hints on how grouping menu entries; see the manual.

MENU LAYOUT
The authoritative list of Debian's menu structure is maintained in the Debian Menu sub-policy document which is part of the Debian Policy package. The menu structure below is included only for convenience. Please do not put your packages into any other sections.

Use `/' to separate sub-menu names, for example, "Applications/Editors" or "Games/Arcade".

 Applications
   Accessibility
   Amateur Radio
   Data Management
   Editors
   Education
   Emulators
   File Management
   Graphics
   Mobile Devices
   Network
     Communication
     File Transfer
     Monitoring
     Web Browsing
     Web News
   Office
   Programming
   Project Management
   Science
     Astronomy
     Biology
     Chemistry
     Data Analysis
     Electronics
     Engineering
     Geoscience
     Mathematics
     Medicine
     Physics
     Social
   Shells
   Sound
   System
     Administration
     Hardware
     Language Environment
     Monitoring
     Package Management
     Security
   Terminal Emulators
   Text
   TV and Radio
   Viewers
   Video
   Web Development
 Games
   Action
   Adventure
   Blocks
   Board
   Card
   Puzzles
   Simulation
   Strategy
   Tools
   Toys
 Help
 Screen
   Saving
   Locking
 Window Managers
 FVWM Modules
 Window Maker

NOTES
If you want to specify an icon or hotkey for a sub-menu (for example, the Editors sub-menu), just use the same syntax but leave the command empty:

?package(mypackage):needs="X11" section="Applications" \
 icon="/usr/share/pixmaps/icon.xpm" hotkey="E" title="Editors"

Whenever any menu files are changed, you must run update-menus(1)

FILES
(Earlier listed files override later files with the same names.)

~/.menu/*
    Menu files added by the user.
/etc/menu/*
    Menu files added by the system administrator.
/usr/lib/menu/*
    Architecture-dependant menu files provided by other Debian packages.
/usr/share/menu/*
    Architecture-independant menu files provided by other Debian packages.
/usr/share/menu/default/*
    Menu files provided by the menu package.

AUTHORS
Joost Witteveen <joostje@debian.org>, based on work by Lars Wirzenius <liw@iki.fi>. Now maintained by Bill Allombert <ballombe@debian.org>.

(Man page by Joey Hess, <joeyh@debian.org>)

SEE ALSO
update-menus(1), /usr/share/doc/menu/html/index.html