Consistent Menus

One trait is common in many human endeavors, especially software development. That is the Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome.

At home I use the MATE and Xfce desktops, although in the past months primarily the latter. At work we use MATE but I want to provide users the option of Xfce. To support that addition I want the two desktops to look as similar as possible.

The MATE desktop menu includes a Programming menu. The Xfce includes a Development menu. Classic NIH.

The MATE *.desktop file for this menu item is named mate-development.directory. Oddly inside the file is Name=Programming rather than Name=Development

I decided the Xfce choice was more appropriate. I needed to change the MATE menu.

This was mostly straightforward. I used the MATE menu editor to rename the menu item. This created $HOME/.local/share/desktop-directories/mate-development.directory.

Happily, problem solved.

Posted: January 26, 2020 Category: Usability Tagged: MATE, Xfce

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