Hello,
I just switched from mainmenu lxqt-panel plugin to fancymenu (introduced with lxqt-2.0
Release LXQt 2.0.0 | LXQt )
and I find it way cuter than the mainmenu.
Why does Lubuntu 24.10 does not ship with it by default? Any plans to switch?
I canât speak for any of the Lubuntu team, but I can tell you that someone has made the decision to remove the Fancy Menu, and put the classic Application Menu back in.
Thank God that decision was made IMHO.
It has been explicitly changed, because plain LXQt 2.0+ (if installed from the sources) comes with the Fancy Menu by default.
I l-o-v-e Lubuntu (and LXQt even more). Unfortunately, since the merger of LXDE/Qt (the precursor of LXQt) with the original Razor Qt project, many years ago already, I have not seen many innovative things being added to the original Razor Qt / LXQt desktop since the merger. Perhaps some things under the bonnet have changed, and errors fixed. Unfortunately, besides of tonnes of translation-stuff not many new things.
Although, I come to the point now, the LXPanel application (the part of the desktop that more or less controls everything we do with the desktop) has seen an important innovation some years ago: one can drag and drop icons (applications) from the classic Application Menu into the quick launch area on the panel. In the LXDE/Qt and early LXQt days this was a bit more complicated, and not many people may have known how to achieve to put icons of frequently used applications in the quick launch zone. Now that works very easy!
There is no accounting for the taste of how a desktop should be organised.
I think using quick launch is superior to adding âFavoritesâ to the new gadget âFancy Menuâ. I think it is rather superfluous functionality.
Nothing fancy in fact.
So, I say⌠âhurrayâ to the person who decided to abolish the Fancy Menu in Lubuntu.
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Another reason âwhy notâ might be: It seems that the Lubuntu team has not yet adapted their âLubuntu Arcâ-theme for the Fancy Menu. In that case (if Iâm correct about this), I certainly should have made the decision to not have it installed as default menu application 
Another argument contra the use of the Fancy Menu is: cascaded menu items are squashed into the left part of the Fancy Menu. You can see that happen already with the default installation when you click on Preferences.
That is already ugly, but workable. On my system, with extra software installed some menu items get invaded with cascaded items. For instance, I have âEasy Effectsâ installed on my laptop. This software helps me to improve the sound quality of the teeny-weeny-laptop-speakers dramatically. I hope lots of people are using it too, but with Fancy Menu, all the not so important subitems of that software get cramped into the âSound & Visionâ menu. Totally unusable 
Update
Yet another small thing: you need to click explicitly on a menu category to see which items are inside (i.e. before the content of the left pane which initially shows the favorites is refreshed). Annoying, another click, and not as fancy as the classic menu 
I donât like the fancy menu either, it doesnât look lean. Besides, itâs so easy to change, it doesnât really matter which menu is default.
4 Likes
Hello Fabioamd87,
Welcome to the forum.
Some of us Linux users like simple and plain and boring I know I do.
Some of us Linux users do not care for bells and whistles and such.
That being the case is why we like the default simple, plain and boring menu.
Another thing is Lubuntu runs great with older lower powered desktop computers which some of us older Linux users are still using.
Nothing wrong with new fancy desktop and menus and bells and whistles if thatâs what you like.
Myself I will stay with the simple and plain and boring as itâs what I prefer.
One of the beauties of Linux is the many choices of everything Linux offers.
Newest and latest software ainât always the best choice as sometimes but not always newest and latest software may come with bugs.
3 Likes
What do you mean with they donât ship it by default. Well itâs not activated by default, but itâs included, you just need to activate it in the panel widget settings.
I believe every user has different preferences and changes the desired panel widgets anyway to his own needs. I also prefer the fancy menu, but itâs standard setting is not intuitive, so I also switch the categeries from right to left.
But I also dislike some of the other stuff that is active by default. So for me no big deal as I have to edit it anyway.
But as Fritz already mentiioned, not all themes are supporting it so far, which is the reason why I added Fancy Menu support to my favourite theme by myself. Took me longer to understand how Githup and Gnome-look works (to share result with community) than just modyfying the themeâŚ
@Fritz the argument that you explicitly have to click an item is obsolete as you can activate autoselect in the settingsâŚ
1 Like
Would you be so kind to share it with us?
Thanks for the click-hint.