How can I modify start menu? (may be called "Dash" in Lubuntu)

[matkoniecz]

How can I modify start menu? I want to get rid of entire “Internet” or at least remove Telegram from it (I deleted it, it is still sitting there).

In the past I used menulibre that was quite buggy but working. Since LXQT it completely stopped working, with selecting entry to be hidden having no effect whatsoever.

I searched for both “start menu” and “dash” in Lubuntu manual ( Search — Lubuntu Manual 23.10 documentation Search — Lubuntu Manual 23.10 documentation )

I followed all instructions and prechecks on About the Lubuntu Support category

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
Release:        20.04
Codename:       focal

Start menu

[That_Random_Guy]

Ubuntu uses Gnome whereas Lubuntu uses LXQt.

In LXQt, what most people will consider as the “start menu” is pretty much just the panel menu (not dash; dash is in Gnome/Unity).

Someone can correct me but last I checked, the panel menu isn’t that configurable. For what is being asked, however, I imagine maybe editing a file will suffice? Not sure which to be honest…

https://github.com/lxqt/lxqt-panel/tree/master/menu

[wxl]

ALL of the menu editors I have found are buggy to some degree and I kind of understand why: a lot of times people want to do things that ultimately violate the XDG Desktop Menu Specification that drives what is happening here. You would do well to simply edit the underlying Desktop Entries.

[matkoniecz]

@wxl

You would do well to simply edit the underlying Desktop Entries.

Thanks, I deleted some of them what get rid of Telegram in start menu.

I still want to get rid of Internet folder, this time deleting .desktop files is probably not a solution as for example package installed Claws Mail is there.

[wxl]

Then edit e.g. Claws to exclude Internet and instead use some other category.

[matkoniecz]

Is it OK to modify such files setup by package installed software?

[wxl]

Sure, why not? I mean, they might revert themselves over time (because of package updates), but you can always change it back.

[anon673819]

The Application Menu (AM) as it’s called in Lubuntu works like this:
The menu itself is just a framework without content but with Categories as defined here:

https://specifications.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html

The contents of the AM are filled by the .desktop files in the:

/usr/share/applications directory (admin user)
or
$HOME/.local/share/applications directory (normal user)

To remove an item from the AM, add the following line to the corresponding .desktop file:
NoDisplay=true

To move an item, modify the line Categories=…
to reflect the place where you want it.

A last twist: Lubuntu has renamed some of the Categories. This has been done in:

/etc/xdg/menus/lxqt-applications.menu

DO NOT CHANGE THIS FILE! but use it for reference to understand the menu names.

And just deleting .desktop files is also not a nice solution.

Cheers.