Mageia forum

Pick a blank spot on your KDE desktop, a spot that is not covered by a window or a gadgeet. Now, right click with the mouse. See that menu? On my system, the first option is Konsole, followed by Run Command

How do I add/change the options on that menu?

I have grepped. I have searched documentation. I have googled. I have manually rooted in directories. And I have not found it, and I want to customize it.

I found these instructions and tested them. They did what they advertized and it seems interesting, not sure it is the full customization you are after. I found other instructions for more extensive customization but have not tested yet.;

Click on the Cashew ( quarter-circle in top right of screen ) > Desktop Settings > Mouse Actions. Set "Right Button" to "Application Launcher"

Hope this helps,

Actually what I want to do is add entries to that standard menu.

jiml8 wrote:Actually what I want to do is add entries to that standard menu.

The number of menu entries depends on the type of your desktop. If it is "folder view" there are more entries than in "(standard) desktop". Seems to be your desktop is of type standard desktop. For extended menu chose folder view.

Click on the Cashew ( quarter-circle in top right of screen ) > "unlock widgets" then rightklick on the desktop and click "settings for standard desktop" and chose folder view as layout.

HTH
Alf

THe number of entries in that right-click menu is configurable - someplace.

I do not want to change my desktop layout. I want to edit the contents of that menu. I want to put what I want into that menu.

I've been googling/reading on it for a couple of hours now and so far it seems that even though kde4 is still called a desktop, under the hood its a plasma and the "right click menu" configuration that everyone took for granted with previous kde desktops just isn't there.

What I went on to read said that it would become possible with the latest releases if anyone wanted to write the helper apps, but that kde4 plasma desktop would not come with the ability pre-installed.

But thats only a couple of hours reading, I'm usually wrong with less that 1000 hours of reading.

jiml8 wrote:I do not want to change my desktop layout. I want to edit the contents of that menu. I want to put what I want into that menu.

So follow

monsteriname wrote:Click on the Cashew ( quarter-circle in top right of screen ) > Desktop Settings > Mouse Actions.

Click at the wrench symbol at the right side of "standard menu" entry and add all items you need if proposed

alf wrote:Click at the wrench symbol at the right side of "standard menu" entry and add all items you need if proposed

Doing that gives me a requester with choices and checkboxes. There appears to be no way to add another entry. The first checkbox is labeled "other actions" which seems promising, but checking or unchecking it seems to do nothing, and I see no way to add my own choices.

jiml8 wrote:but checking or unchecking it seems to do nothing, and I see no way to add my own choices.

That's why i proposed to change the desktop type

alf wrote:

jiml8 wrote:but checking or unchecking it seems to do nothing, and I see no way to add my own choices.

That's why i proposed to change the desktop type

Changing desktop type does not give me an option to add a new entry to that menu. It does give me the option to add a new entry on the desktop, which is not what I want to do.

What do you want to add exactly? Some custom entry, something like a servicemenu entry for dolphin e.g.?
Or do you only want to change the standard entries?

I want to make several alterations, in both my Mageia host and in several of my VMs, to make that menu better reflect how I use the particular instance of KDE. For instance, in my Mageia host, I would like to have VMware Workstation available on that menu. In my new FreeBSD KDE desktop, I very badly want to put both Konsole and Gedit on that menu...particularly Konsole. I want to make similar alterations to several of my VMs because it will just make things more convenient for me.

I really don't care about plasma tools or graphical tools to make the change. Someplace in the system - and I have hunted but have not found it - there is a list of what entries go on that menu for this context or for that context. I don't know how that list is kept; references to desktop files I suppose. I will manually edit that list, if I can find it.

Seems it's mostly hardcoded. https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=22508
There's also http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/?content=157202 ( http://www.staerk.de/thorsten/Kde-contextmenu )

http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tut ... mentAction

doktor5000 wrote:Seems it's mostly hardcoded. https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=22508
There's also http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/?content=157202 ( http://www.staerk.de/thorsten/Kde-contextmenu )

http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tut ... mentAction

Now that is just downright ugly.

However, after following these links, I had a hunch and googled on KDE context menu plugin, which led me to http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma/ContainmentAction#kde-contextmenu.desktop

I can do that. I think I would alter the program to read a config file, but I can do that too.

And then I find this:

/usr/share/share/kde4/services/plasma-containmentactions-contextmenu.desktop

which identifies itself as the standard menu - which is what the menu I am interested in is known as.

So some progress, at least, has been made.

And I have now found the relevant source code. It is here, in the kde-workspace package:
kde-workspace-<rev no>/plasma/generic/containmentactions/contextmenu/

So, yes. of all the stupid things, it is hard-coded in the package. Furthermore, the menu.cpp and menu.h files in that directory are written in a somewhat abstract fashion, which will have me grepping for awhile to figure it out.

I am thinking that project I linked a couple of posts back might be the way to do it; simple enough, and easily extended so I could put the commands it uses into a config file.

However, I don't have the time to do that right now so, since it isn't simple, I guess I have to table it for awhile.

There's a page in the german Ubuntu-Wiki about the menu, which should give you an idea about files and their locations, or search google for servicemenu and kde. http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/KDE-Servicemen%C3%BCs

hth
Lutz

Not quite, servicemenus only apply for dolphin/konqueror, not for plasma containments itself. And they are easily modifiable.
Global desktop context menu sadly not - that is, if you want to do more then remove some existing entries.