Customizing KDE menus

[Bob Shaffer]

I finally found the solution on my own and thought I would share this
information with the list.  I apologize for the length.

You can not modify /var/lib/menu/kde/... (or /usr/share/applnk-redhat/...)
manually.  The directory tree is rebuilt automatically by some mystery
process.  If you want to add something to that tree, you have to put your
new .desktop files in /usr/share/applications/ and they MUST have a
"Categories=" line in them.  The precise details as to the meaning of
these categories are unknown to me at this time, but here is what I
figured out:

each "category" in that field ends with a semicolon (;) including the last
one; the semicolon is not just a delimiter.

These are the categories I found and what they mean:
Application;        Seems to be present for everything

X-Red-Hat-Base;     If present, the item is placed in the base menu
X-Red-Hat-Extra;    If present, the item is placed in the "More __" submenu

Utility;            The accessories menu
Game;               The game menu
Graphics;           The graphics menu
Network;            The internet menu
AudioVideo;         The multimedia (Sound & Video) menu
Office;             The office menu
Settings;           The "Preferences" menu
Development;        The "Programming" menu
System;             The "System Tools" menu
SystemSetup;        The "System Settings" menu

GNOME;              This must do something in gnome, I couldn't say what

These categories seem to have no effect on where items are placed (in KDE
at least).  Maybe they do something with the Gnome menu, in which case the
GNOME category might need to be present for them to show up in the right
places.  Maybe someone else can fill in the blanks here for me...
ArcadeGame;
BoardGame;
CardGame;
PuzzleGame;
StrategyGame;
RasterGraphics;
VectorGraphics;
Viewer;
Spreadsheet;
AdvancedSettings;
TextEditor;
GTK;

There were also 2 exceptions that I need to list:

redhat-config-rootpassword.desktop:
Categories=Application;System;X-Red-Hat-Base;
redhat-switchdesk.desktop
Categories=Application;Settings;X-Red-Hat-Extra;

These 2 both showed up in the "System Settings".
It looks like "Settings" might be something like an alias for "SystemSetup"
but the redhat-config-rootpassword entry coming up in "System Settings" is
a real mystery unless everything I just wrote is wrong.

____________________________________________________________________________
Bob Shaffer II - Owner, Developer, System Operator - BobShaffersComputer.com
http://bobshafferscomputer.com/             telnet://bobshafferscomputer.com