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1 perry 1 UPDATE-MENUS
2 !!!UPDATE-MENUS
3 NAME
4 SYNOPSIS
5 DESCRIPTION
6 OPTIONS
7 CONFIGURATION
8 FILES
9 DISTRIBUTION
10 BUGS
11 AUTHOR
12 THANKS
13 SEE ALSO
14 ----
15 !!NAME
16
17
18 update-menus - generate Debian menu system
19 !!SYNOPSIS
20
21
22 __update-menus [[-v] [[-d] [[-h]__
23 !!DESCRIPTION
24
25
26 Before the advent of ''update-menus'', when the system
27 administrator installed a package onto a Debian system, they
28 would need to edit various window manager configuration
29 files to make the new program show up on, for example,
30 fvwm's menus. The menus could easily become out of sync with
31 what programs were actually available, with some menu items
32 that didn't work, and other programs that lacked a menu
33 entry. ''update-menus'' and Debian's menu package aim to
34 solve this problem.
35
36
37 ''update-menus'' automatically generates menus of
38 installed programs for window managers and other menu
39 programs. It should be run whenever a menufile(5) or
40 menu-method file is changed. ''update-menus'' will be ran
41 automatically when Debian packages that contain menu files
42 are installed or removed from the system.
43
44
45 ''update-menus'' uses the package-supplied menu entry
46 files (in /usr/lib/menu) for it's information about the
47 menus (but this can be overruled by the system
48 administrator/user, see below). If a menu entry file is
49 executable, ''update-menus'' execute the menu entry file,
50 and use it's stdout to generate the menu
51 database.
52 !!OPTIONS
53
54
55 -v
56
57
58 Verbose output. Shows all arguments to the /etc/menu-methods
59 programs.
60
61
62 -d
63
64
65 Debug output. Generates loads of unintelligible
66 output.
67
68
69 -h
70
71
72 Display usage help and exit.
73 !!CONFIGURATION
74
75
76 There are several ways to tune the operation of
77 update-menus:
78
79
80 ''per menu entry, in /etc/menu/$package''
81
82
83 In these directory the system administrator or user can
84 override the default menu files. (if a file
85 /etc/menu/$package exists, than the corresponding
86 /usr/lib/menu/$package file isn't read any more). Users who
87 want to override the system wide defaults put their files in
88 ~/.menu. See also __menufile(5)__
89
90
91 ''per window-manager in
92 /etc/menu-methods/$wm''
93
94
95 In these configuration files, one can tune generated
96
97
98 ''globally, in
99 /etc/menu-methods/translate_menus''
100
101
102 This file contains translations that will be performed for
103 all menu entries and all window managers. You can specify
104 things like: `All sections that start with
105
106
107 ''error report configuring, in
108 /etc/menu-methods/menu.config''
109
110
111 This file contains general information for the overall
112 behaviour of update-menus. At the moment you can only
113 configure how verbose the output of update-menus is, and
114 where it sends the output. The amount of information is
115 specified by `verbosity=VAL'. Use VAL=quite to stop
116 update-menu from reporting anything but the most important
117 errors, VAL=normal, VAL=verbose, VAL=debug for progressively
118 more output.
119
120
121 To specify where the output should go, use `method=stdout',
122 `method=stderr', or `method=syslog facility priority'.
123 `Facility' is one of auth, authpriv, authcron, authdaemon,
124 authkern, authlocal0, authlocal1, authlocal2, authlocal3,
125 authlocal4, authlocal5, authlocal6, authlocal7, authlpr,
126 authmail, authnews, authsyslog, authuser, authuucp.
127 `priority' is one of emerg, alert, crit, err, warning,
128 notice, info, debug.
129 !!FILES
130
131
132 Menu files: (Earlier listed directories override those
133 listed later.)
134
135
136 ''~/.menu/*''
137
138
139 Menu files added by the user. (Isn't read if root runs
140 update-menus)
141
142
143 ''/etc/menu/*''
144
145
146 Menu files added by the system administrator.
147
148
149 ''/usr/lib/menu/*''
150
151
152 Menu files provided by other Debian packages.
153
154
155 ''/usr/lib/menu/default/*''
156
157
158 Menu files provided by the menu package. (These are for
159 packages that don't provide menu entries yet. If you see (or
160 maintain) a package that supplies a menu file in
161 /usr/lib/menu/, please email me and I'll remove that menu
162 file from /usr/lib/menu/default/).
163
164
165 Menu methods:
166
167
168 ''/etc/menu-methods/''
169
170
171 Executable configuration files that are added by window
172 managers and other menu programs, these files are run by
173 ''update-menus'' to generate menus for the different
174 programs. Also in this directory is the translate file, used
175 for local configuration of the shape of the menu
176 trees.
177
178
179 ''~/.menu-methods/''
180
181
182 For users to override the system-defaults of
183 /etc/menu-methods. If this directory exists, no files in
184 /etc/menu-methods are read any more.
185 !!DISTRIBUTION
186
187
188 Distribution is subject to the GNU public
189 license.
190 !!BUGS
191
192
193 ''update-menus'' may not work properly when run by a
194 normal user, to generate menus for that user. This is
195 usually because the window manager doesn't expect the
196 system.
197 ''
198 !!AUTHOR
199
200
201 Joost Witteveen
202 !!THANKS
203
204
205 To Joey Hess, for a lot of good ideas and pre-release
206 testing, and to Tom Lees for a update-menus in pure C (of
207 which I only used one function, but that's
208 life).
209
210
211 (Man page by Joey Hess,
212 !!SEE ALSO
213
214
215 menufile(5), __/usr/doc/menu/html__
216 ----
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