up vote 16 down vote favorite
3

Alacarte crashes every time I attempt to edit a submenu or move an item from one submenu to another and then I'd have to wipe the application.menu files or my gnomeshell desktop would be useless. Is there a way to organize my main menu and unity dash applications subcategories without using Alacarte? I've got so many items installed in the wrong category and I'd also like to remove a ton of zombie icons.

share|improve this question
    
I can edit and correct some information using these responses, but one large question remains unanswered. How do I move entries that gnome misfiled in the 'other' menu during my last upgrade, and put them back where they belong? – user258515 Apr 22 '14 at 11:52
up vote 16 down vote accepted

GUI way

You might want to try Menulibre, a new alternative to Alacarte. You can install it via:

sudo apt-get install menulibre

Manual way

Application launchers are located in these three folders:

~/.local/share/applications

(your user only)

/usr/local/share/applications
/usr/share/applications

(all users)

By modifying the .desktop files found in these folders you can edit menu entries directly. Modifications in user-wide folders will require root access:

gksudo nautilus /usr/local/share/applications

Drag and drop .desktop files into a text editor like gedit to edit their contents. If root access is required, use:

gksudo gedit

Delete the files to remove their corresponding menu/dash entries.

Important Caveat: Changes introduced to default – i.e. user-wide – .desktop files might get reverted on the next system update.

share|improve this answer
1  
Application launchers for all users are usually located in /usr/share/applications. /usr/local/share/applications usually only contains launchers for programs that you install from source code. Also, you can edit a launcher from one of those two folder as a normal user: copy the launcher to ~/.local/share/applications and edit that copy (that's what alacarte and menulibre do). Only you will see this modified launcher. – Bruno Nova Oct 11 '14 at 9:52
    
@BrunoNova Thanks for the correction on the launcher locations! I'd only like to add that copying the launcher to your home folder might result in a duplicate launcher in the dash. OTOH, changes introduced to the default launchers might get reverted with system updates. – Glutanimate Oct 11 '14 at 11:33
up vote 8 down vote

To add to the answer above, the .desktop files may also be located in

/usr/share/applications
share|improve this answer
up vote 0 down vote

An old alternative is to install gnome-panel and use gnome-desktop-item-edit application.

gnome-desktop-item-edit also has a parameter --create-new, to create new launchers.

share|improve this answer
up vote 0 down vote

Another alternative menu editor is ezame which I have used and works quite well. You can install it by running the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:caldas-lopes/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ezame

The source code is available on GitHub.

share|improve this answer

protected by Community♦ Oct 11 '14 at 14:46

Thank you for your interest in this question. Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site (the association bonus does not count).

Would you like to answer one of these unanswered questions instead?

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.