Manual: update-menus

UPDATE-MENUS(1)					   General Commands Manual				     UPDATE-MENUS(1)

NAME
       update-menus - generate Debian menu system

SYNOPSIS
       update-menus  [-v]  [-d]	 [-h|--help]  [--version]  [--menufilesdir  ] [--menumethod ] [--nodefaultdirs]
       [--stdout]

DESCRIPTION
       Before the advent of update-menus, when the system administrators installed a package  onto  a  Debian  system,	they
       would need to edit various window manager configuration files to make the new program show up on, for example, fvwm's
       menus.	The  menus  could easily become out of sync with what programs were actually available, with some menu items
       that didn't work, and other programs that lacked a menu entry.  update-menus and Debian's menu package aim  to  solve
       this problem.

       update-menus  automatically  generates  menus  of installed programs for window managers and other menu programs.  It
       should be run whenever a menufile(5) or menu-method file is changed.  update-menus will be run automatically when De‐
       bian packages that contain menu files are installed on or removed from the system.

       update-menus uses the package-supplied menu entry files (in /usr/share/menu) for its information about the menus (but
       this can be overruled by the system administrator/user; see below).  If a menu entry file is executable, update-menus
       executes the menu entry file, and uses its stdout to generate the menu database.

OPTIONS
       -v     Verbose output.  Shows all arguments to the /etc/menu-methods programs.

       -d     Debug output. Generates loads of unintelligible output.

       -h, --help
	      Display usage help and exit.

       --menufilesdir 
	      Adds directory  to the list of directories to search for menu files in.

       --menumethod 
	      Process only the menu method  instead of all the menu methods found.

       --nodefaultdirs
	      Disables the search of menu entries in system menu directories.

       --nodpkgcheck
	      Do not discard menu entries for packages that are not installed according to dpkg.

       --remove
	      Remove the menus by calling the menu-methods with --remove.

       --stdout
	      Output the menu list in a format suitable as input for install-menu or a menu method file.

       --version
	      Output version information and exit.

CONFIGURATION
       There are several ways to tune the operation of update-menus:

       per menu entry, in /etc/menu/$package
	      In these directories the system administrator or	user  can  override  the  default  menu	 files	(If  a	file
	      /etc/menu/$package  exists,  then the corresponding /usr/share/menu/$package file isn't read any more).  Users
	      who want to override the system wide defaults put their files in ~/.menu.	 See also menufile(5)
       per window-manager in /etc/menu-methods/$wm
	      In these configuration files, one can tune generated system.${wm}rc files for each individual window  manager.
	      For  example, one can specify that the wm should ignore any icons that the packages may supply, or set the de‐
	      fault wrapper for text-only applications (usually, an xterm is started to run  a	text-only  application	like
	      vi).   Users who want to override the system wide defaults put their files in ~/.menu-methods.  For more info,
	      see /usr/share/doc/menu/html.
       globally, in /etc/menu-methods/translate_menus
	      This file contains translations that will be performed for all menu entries and all window managers.  You	 can
	      specify  things  like:  `All  sections  that  start with "Games" should be mapped to "Applications/Games"', or
	      `menuentry "gnuplot" should have a  title	 of  "GnuTeken"'.   Look  at  the  default  /etc/menu-methods/trans‐
	      late_menus  for an example.  Users who want to override the system default translate file, put one in ~/.menu-
	      methods/translate_menus.	Note: This should not be used for a full translation of the menu.  Use po  files  as
	      explained in the source package.
       error report configuring, in /etc/menu-methods/menu.config
	      This  file contains general information for the overall behaviour of update-menus.  At the moment you can only
	      configure how verbose the output of update-menus is, and where it sends the output.  The amount of information
	      is specified by `verbosity=VAL'.	Use VAL=quiet to stop update-menu from reporting anything but the  most	 im‐
	      portant errors, VAL=normal, VAL=verbose, VAL=debug for progressively more output.

	      To specify where the output should go, use `method=stdout', `method=stderr', or `method=syslog facility prior‐
	      ity'.   `Facility'  is  one of auth, authpriv, authcron, authdaemon, authkern, authlocal0, authlocal1, authlo‐
	      cal2, authlocal3, authlocal4, authlocal5, authlocal6, authlocal7, authlpr, authmail, authnews, authsyslog, au‐
	      thuser, authuucp.	 `priority' is one of emerg, alert, crit, err, warning, notice, info, debug.

FILES
       Menu files: (Earlier listed directories override those listed later.)
	      ~/.menu/*
		     Menu files added by the user.  (Isn't read if root runs update-menus)
	      /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.
       Menu methods:
	      /etc/menu-methods/
		     Executable configuration files that are added by window managers and other menu programs,	these  files
		     are  run  by  update-menus to generate menus for the different programs.  Also in this directory is the
		     translate_menus file, used for local configuration of the shape of the menu trees.
	      ~/.menu-methods/
		     For users to override the system-defaults of /etc/menu-methods.  If this directory exists, no files  in
		     /etc/menu-methods are read any more.

DISTRIBUTION
       Distribution is subject to the GNU General Public License.

BUGS
       update-menus  may  not work properly when run by a normal user, to generate menus for that user.	 This is usually be‐
       cause the window manager doesn't expect the system.${wm}rc files in the directory (usually ~/.${wm}, configurable  in
       /etc/menu-methods).   If	 you  see such a thing, and you find a solution, please mail .  It
       should work OK for fvwm and fvwm2: I usually test the package first as an ordinary user.

AUTHORS
       Joost Witteveen , original idea by Lars Wirzenius .  Now maintained by Bill Allombert
       .

THANKS
       To Joey Hess, for a lot of good ideas and pre-release testing, and to Tom Lees for a update-menus in pure C (of which
       I only used one function, but that's life).

       Man page by Joey Hess, 

SEE ALSO
       menufile(5), /usr/share/doc/menu/html

DEBIAN						      Debian Utilities					     UPDATE-MENUS(1)