[kde-linux] How do I add my own item to the main launcher menu?

[Duncan]

David J Iannucci posted on Sat, 07 Aug 2010 15:11:48 -0600 as excerpted:

> This was the critical clue for me.  So here's the explanation: I'm using
> Gentoo, and my system is sorta halfway between KDE4.4.4 and kde-sunset
> (3.5.10).  It turns out that kmenuedit was installed in the KDE3 slot,
> but not for KDE4.  All I had to do was install (merge) the 4.4.4 version
> of this app, (and logout and back in) and it works as expected.
> 
> I guess... I wouldn't have imagined that this functionality was entirely
> encompassed in a special app that could be accidentally omitted.

Gentoo here, too. =:^)  And while it 3.5 wasn't in sunset yet, I ran both 
versions for awhile here myself.

When it became apparent kde upstream wasn't supporting kde3 any more 
(despite the promise of support as long as there were users) and thus, 
Gentoo was dropping it too, around 4.2.4, I finally got serious about 
things and made the switch.

Of course 4.2 was **SERIOUSLY** broken still (again, despite kde upstream 
saying it was ready for normal users... but things have been getting 
markedly better with each release, the reason you'll see me practically 
/begging/ people to upgrade if they report 4.2 or even 4.3, 4.2 is 
/just/ /not/ /worth/ /the/ /hassle/ with better out now, and 4.3 is at 
least semi-usable, but still buggy enough to be worth upgrading), and it 
took me quite some time to get a reasonably workable kde4.  (It was well 
over a hundred hours of configuring, finding alternatives and/or 
workarounds for the stuff still so broken config couldn't help, scripting 
my own workarounds when there weren't any, etc, ready for the normal user, 
yeah... right... no wonder people were ditching kde!)

What I finally ended up doing was switching one app at a time.  Starting 
on kde3, I'd run say, konsole from kde4 (typing in the absolute path 
directly to get the kde4 version), and get it configured to work as I 
wanted.  Then I'd unmerge the kde3 version so the kde4 version would be 
invoked when the app was.  I did the same with konqueror, kmail, etc, and 
ran system-settings to get what I could (including colors, which took 
awhile as I had to find a proper "reverse" color scheme on kdelook, then 
tweak it a bit as necessary, since I strongly prefer light text on a dark 
background... I ended up working with the kde guy (Matthew, IIRC) handling 
the color kcm and helping to get better descriptions for the color roles, 
etc, as they weren't well documented yet and I had serious trouble making 
heads or tails of the new color system) configured there.

After getting all the regular kde4 apps configured, I killed kwin(3) and 
started kwin(4), thus allowing me to configure it properly... while still 
running kde3's kdesktop and kicker.  After that, about all that was left 
to switch out was the desktop and panels themselves.  For that, I actually 
quit kde3 and started kde4, and thus plasma, so I could configure it.

So you're talking to someone who knows rather well from
way-more-intimate-than-he-intended-or-wanted personal experience just what 
half-way between kde 4.x and kde 3.5 looks like, tho the 4.x was the 
horribly broken 4.2.4 not the current MUCH MUCH improved 4.4.4 (actually 
4.4.5, here).

Back then, kde4 was so terribly buggy and non-functional, I simply 
couldn't work in proper kde4, as it was simply too slow and crippled to 
work in. (There was one serious graphics repainting bug fixed with 4.3.1, 
IIRC, that was slowing the system to a crawl one way, and a bad effects 
config slowing it to a crawl another way... between the two of them... 
minutes to start an app, minutes to change a few settings... and with both 
issues affecting the config at once, I couldn't really find either one due 
to the effects of the other.  So the only way to find what the problems 
were and fix them was tackle one thing at a time, with the rest kde3 until 
I got each thing workably configured and switched over individually.)

So just ask if you have any other such issues, and perhaps I can help, as 
I've gone thru it when things were **MUCH** worse.  But I don't do IRC/IM 
so I won't be of much help there, and there's a few other apps I don't 
have installed, as well.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman