Does Cinnamon allow users to use old-style menus?

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Marja Erwin

Does Cinnamon allow users to use old-style menus?

Post by Marja Erwin »

I have tried Cinnamon via live dvd, and - like other versions of Mint, it merges all the menus into one huge menu.

I am clumsy, and can menus, and usually sub-menus, but slip and screw up when dealing with sub-sub-menus and sub-sub-sub menus, unless I can break them off into their own windows. So the menus in Gnome 2 and MacOS are easy to use, but the menus in Mate, unless reconfigured, Cinnamon, and Windows are very hard to use. I haven't tried Unity in forever, but found it generally hard to use.

Is there any way to replace that huge menu in Cinnamon with, for example, the Applications, Places and System menus from Gnome 2? I know there is a way in Mate.

Is there any advantage to that huge menu?
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Kalyk
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Re: Does Cinnamon allow users to use old-style menus?

Post by Kalyk »

Under Linux almost everything can be changed, but then the specific distro might work a little less.
An advantage of the big menus under Cinnamon and Mate is, that you can also just start typing the name of the program and it will be the only one left so you can just click it or even press enter to run it directly.
But if you want the older submenus then you might like Linux Mint XFCE :-)
It's as minty as the rest of them, very stable and a lot of people like it very much.
Add (Solved) to the topic-title of the first post when appropriate so others know they might find a solution here.
JosephM
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Re: Does Cinnamon allow users to use old-style menus?

Post by JosephM »

To answer the original question, there are few applets you can use to replace the stock Cinnamon menu. You can find them here: http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/applets or by going to System Settings -> Applets and installing them directly from there. Maybe one of those would better suit your tastes.
When I give opinions, they are my own. Not necessarily those of any other Linux Mint developer or the Linux Mint project as a whole.
Marja Erwin

Re: Does Cinnamon allow users to use old-style menus?

Post by Marja Erwin »

Kalyk wrote:Under Linux almost everything can be changed, but then the specific distro might work a little less.
An advantage of the big menus under Cinnamon and Mate is, that you can also just start typing the name of the program and it will be the only one left so you can just click it or even press enter to run it directly.
But if you want the older submenus then you might like Linux Mint XFCE :-)
It's as minty as the rest of them, very stable and a lot of people like it very much.
I tried Xfce, via Xubuntu. It was a disaster. It crashed during installation, there was no way to keep the touchpad from going haywire, there was no way to fix things that went wrong, it was hard to navigate, I gave up after a few days.

I think the Gnome Menu looks like the only workable accessible menu for me: http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/applets/view/51 And where and when would you type the search, and how would it work?
JosephM
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Re: Does Cinnamon allow users to use old-style menus?

Post by JosephM »

I think the Gnome Menu looks like the only workable accessible menu for me: http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/applets/view/51 And where and when would you type the search, and how would it work?
I can't answer that. I have never actually used a menu in cinnamon besides the default one as it works fine for me. Was just trying to point out some options. Did the old gnome2 menu have a search function? That applet looks like what you were asking for. You could also try that menu in combination with something like synapse for searching. This will give you an idea of what synapse is: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/11/syna ... iew-ubuntu. I have used it in the past and it works quite well. I think it is available in the software manager if you want to give it a shot.
When I give opinions, they are my own. Not necessarily those of any other Linux Mint developer or the Linux Mint project as a whole.
Marja Erwin

Re: Does Cinnamon allow users to use old-style menus?

Post by Marja Erwin »

Did the old gnome2 menu have a search function?
None that I'm aware of. Anyway, unless I'm creating a new document, and even then only sometimes, or reading mail, or using the web, I'm going to go to the appropriate folders and rummage through the appropriate files to find the ones I'm working on, checking against, etc. Most files don't have descriptive names, and short of renaming everything, just sorting everything into appropriate folders is more helpful.
anandrkris

Re: Does Cinnamon allow users to use old-style menus?

Post by anandrkris »

Maybe this didnt work for you...Am thinking if you can use Menu editor and clear the options that you dont want to see..

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clfarron4

Re: Does Cinnamon allow users to use old-style menus?

Post by clfarron4 »

This applet (already suggested) does work, though you will have to manually follow the installation instructions on the page (put another way, DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT THROUGH THE CINNAMON SETTINGS MANAGER).

If I remember correctly, it needs to be updated with the Cinnamon specific applications as it was originally written when Cinnamon was still heavily dependent on GNOME3.
InkKnife
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Re: Does Cinnamon allow users to use old-style menus?

Post by InkKnife »

Not a menu but the XFCE-Appfinder is a simple app launcher/finder with search built in. You can install it from the Mint repo.
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