Alacarte, having issues, will not save or edit applications panel?

relaxing · #1 12th June 2011, 04:13 PM

Anyone else encountered this issue? Alacarte opens and seems to be working properly however it will not write any changes to the "applications" panel. if I un-check, edit or remove any listing under Alacarte it is still in the applications panels. I ran it in a terminal window under both home user and root, not errors, and sitll will not save changes or revert.

I don't know if anyone else has experianced this. This may have started after the installation of wine, but not ceartian about that, that is just when I first noticed the issue.

Would my best option to un-install and re-install? Thanks for any tips! most appreciated, Scott

**nirik** · #2 12th June 2011, 08:55 PM

If you are using gnome3/f15, try restarting gnome shell after making your changes (either logout and back on, or alt+f2 and 'r')

VerneOR · #3 12th June 2011, 10:07 PM

I've run into this same issue, alacarte seems to be hit or miss when it comes to FC15 x64 Gnome3 (no idea about the 32bit ver.) Editing entries has no effect (at least for me)... restarting the Gnome Shell, logging out or rebooting.. doesn't make any difference. The Menu items remain un-modified (In Applications and/or System Settings) after un-checking them.

Deleting an entry using alacarte OTOH, does eliminate a Menu item, and shows that entry missing after a restart of the Shell. One more thing, checking a previously un-checked Menu Item in alacarte will add it to Applications, no problem.

relaxing · #4 12th June 2011, 10:22 PM

yes, it is very buggy under 32bit f15 gnome3, I logged in the root desktop and ran alacarte from a terminal, it works correctly there, perfectly, got rid of the empty icon holders, etc.... I do get some unusual write errors reported when I login as root, this is most likly a separate issue, SE Linux keeps telling me gdm components cannot write to root, should I give permission? I'm assuming this has something to do with desktop control there.

I wonder Verne, do you have any MS windows apps installed under Wine? Just trying to find a common denominator. In my no root desktop, Alacarte seems to function but absolutely will not edit the applications menu, at all, add, remove, edit, delete, nothing... it looks as if it is, but on next boot it is reverted. Is it safe to simply un-install through yum and re-install.

And please anyone, what file do I edit if I want to manually configure the Gnome3 applications pane? That would be much appreciated, seems like command line editing seems to be by far the best solution in most sticky cases.

VerneOR · #5 12th June 2011, 10:49 PM

relaxing, I don't have Wine installed... there are some comments in the forum about alacarte working for certain people, that are using it (FC15). So there may be some conflict in common for those of us that do experience issues. Right now, easy configuration of Gnome3 via a GUI is somewhat limited.

Hopefully the wails of the great un-washed masses (us) will convince the devs to add the configuration tools back into G3.

SELinux has it's issues too, I have set mine to "permissive", which solves the notification errors.. many of which are of no seeming importance, as to system usage. Though I'm sure someone will want to point out my abuse of a security feature.

Btw extensions (available through the repositories), go a long way towards adding flexibility back to the Gnome Shell panel.If you haven't explored that option.....

relaxing · #6 13th June 2011, 12:07 AM

There is bound to be a file(s) for manual launcher configuration but I do not know the names or location?

nonamedotc · #7 13th June 2011, 05:25 PM

As far as I know, alacarte does not seem to do much in F15(X64)/Gnome3 (the one I am using). If you want to rearrange your applications menu items, you can do it by editing the *.desktop files in the folder

Code:

/usr/share/applications/ or 

/usr/local/share/applications/ or

/home/yourusername/.local/share/applications/

You have to edit the value for 'categories' in the .desktop files.

For me, all my menu items were in one of these folders. There is one problem I am unable to solve yet. I had created some application 'folders' in F14 using alacarte which I am not able to delete but I am able to move the items under any menu easily.

If someone is able to deal with that let me know. Thanks.

relaxing · #8 13th June 2011, 07:15 PM

Thank you!

jtfolden · #9 13th June 2011, 07:18 PM

I haven't used it on the final release but under the beta Alacarte was working fine. HOWEVER, I found a lot of icons listed twice in the menu. If you only disable/remove one icon and there is a duplicate elsewhere then it will still show up under Gnome Shell.

relaxing · #10 13th June 2011, 11:47 PM

yea, that is a very similar issue to what I am having, if I disable all the links in Alacarte, there are still artifacts icons left anyway... oh well, can't wait to view that file and see what its looking for till the bugs are dead.

Thanks

---------- Post added at 10:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 PM ----------

well Doc, looks like mine are in /usr/share/applications/ except for wine which is in user/.local... But strange I experimented with one file, vlc.desktop, I assume would have the parameters for the .desktop file would have an effect, I tested this one, moved it to a separate directory and had no effect on placement, look or function. I moved ALL the wine-xx desktop files and still no effect, reboot, no effect... ok I'm a nube but I am confused... LOL, glad I keep a backup of all these...

Doc if you figure anything out please let me know, I'll keep poking away with it.. time for dinner.

Scott

nonamedotc · #11 13th June 2011, 11:49 PM

The duplicate icons could be because of entries in more than one folder (/usr ... or /home/...). Also, look for .desktop files which start with 'userapp'.

I do not how alacarte manages the duplicates, but since alacarte didnot work, I manually cleared these duplicates (deleting the .desktop files) and now there are no repetitions. What I am unable to do it to remove the menu folders (sub-menus) created by alacarte.

Hope this helps.

Edit:
Also, after you move/modify/delete the files, make sure you reboot gnome-shell. (Alt+F2 then 'r' enter)

relaxing · #12 25th June 2011, 05:35 PM

I did a uninstall of alacarte and re-install, that seemed to clear most issues. I use alacarte very sparingly now if at all. What would be nice in a future update if gnome had a right click option to "edit" or "delete" the launcher from the Application menu, that would be a nice addition. At this time I find awn a much nice more concise way to make and manage Gui Launchers on the awn panel strip which is placed on the blank gnome3 desktop... works great and very easy to configure a launcher for commonaly used apps.

Thanks guys for the tips and info, Scott