Q about XFCE and Synaptic

[Bloodcrow]

Hi all,

As of yesterday, i installed Mint with XFCE on a beater notebook (Dell 600, P3/ 700mHz). So far so good but as people are known to do, i thought i'd add a diversion or two. The reason was twofold- to have a diversion (in this case, chess) and to become more familiar with Synaptic under XFCE.

I have another box that runs Ubuntu with Gnome so when i install something, Synaptic will put the program somewhere and make a shortcut to it so i simply go to the top of the screen, select whatever directory the program should be under, Apps, Games, Utilities, etc... and presto, the app is there.

So i found a version of Chess that i thought might work (via Synaptic). Downloaded it, installed it but cannot find it.

So the questions are:
1) What am i missing ? and
2) What's the best way to add/ modify the contextual menus that XFCE uses?

Thank you,
Bloodcrow

[MagnusB]

What is the name of the chess game?
Try in a terminal window:

Code: Select all

% sudo updatedb
% locate nameofchessgame

Then copy paste into the forum. You might need to add a launcher yourself...

[billy8580]

I've used the new Darnya XFCE beta. I know that adding a launcher to a panel is trickier in XFCE than the simple drag method you can do in gnome. It involves getting the command in, proper icon etc. Adding it to the desktop is a snap though. Just right click. Maybe that was something that you found out already however. Also, to give you confidence in Mint XFCE on an older laptop....i have run Xubuntu on a 333 Celeron and it works just fine. Im sure Mint XFCE would be great as well.

[MagnusB]

I've used the new Darnya XFCE beta. I know that adding a launcher to a panel is trickier in XFCE than the simple drag method you can do in gnome. It involves getting the command in, proper icon etc. Adding it to the desktop is a snap though. Just right click. Maybe that was something that you found out already however. Also, to give you confidence in Mint XFCE on an older laptop....i have run Xubuntu on a 333 Celeron and it works just fine. Im sure Mint XFCE would be great as well.

Finding the right command is effortless, us locate or whereis.
Let us say I have installed Xmoto (which I have), but it does not appear in the menu and I want to locate the command for it:

/usr/share/games/xmoto
/usr/share/games/xmoto/xmoto_icone_x.ico
/usr/share/games/xmoto/xmoto.bin
/usr/share/games/xmoto/Textures
/usr/share/games/xmoto/Textures/Musics
/usr/share/games/xmoto/Textures/Musics/legolodio.ogg
/usr/share/games/xmoto/Textures/Musics/ridealong.ogg
/usr/share/games/xmoto/Textures/Musics/menu.ogg
/usr/share/games/xmoto/Textures/Musics/batcave.ogg
/usr/share/games/xmoto/Textures/Fonts
/usr/share/games/xmoto/Textures/Fonts/DejaVuSans.ttf
/usr/share/games/locale/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/ru_RU/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/pl_PL/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/cs_CZ/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/it_IT/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/lv_LV/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/nb_NO/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/nn_NO/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/fi_FI/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/fr_FR/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/sv_SE/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/no_NO/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/es_ES/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/pt_BR/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/sk_SK/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/games/locale/ca_ES/LC_MESSAGES/xmoto.mo
/usr/share/applications/xmoto.desktop
/usr/share/man/man6/xmoto.6.gz
/usr/share/menu/xmoto
/usr/share/doc/xmoto-data
/usr/share/doc/xmoto-data/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/xmoto-data/copyright
/usr/share/doc/xmoto-data/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/xmoto-data/NEWS.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/xmoto
/usr/share/doc/xmoto/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/xmoto/copyright
/usr/share/doc/xmoto/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/xmoto/README.gz
/usr/share/doc/xmoto/NEWS.Debian.gz
/usr/share/pixmaps/xmoto.xpm
/usr/games/xmoto
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xmoto.postrm
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xmoto.postinst
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xmoto.md5sums
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xmoto-data.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xmoto.list
/var/lib/dpkg/info/xmoto-data.md5sums

The bold line told me the executable, then I can check the command:

xmoto: /usr/games/xmoto /usr/share/man/man6/xmoto.6.gz

That did not bring anything new to the picture, as locate had already found the command (xmoto), but anyway, I now know the exact command to launch xmoto and where that is placed. I could first try to launch by just typing xmoto, if that fails I would use the full adress (/usr/games/xmoto)

[be80be]

you can try update-menus it works for most apps all you do is open a term and type sudo update-menus and it should add it

[Bloodcrow]

Dear all,

I kind of answered my own question. This may or may not be of use to new users but here goes.

I followed the advice of update-menus which was fine. It found the Chess program (btw, apparently you have to find and download an engine to make the chess program go). Horray. The problem was it was tucked away in an odd part of the contextual tree- right click, auto generated menu, chess.

Not quite was i was looking for, but getting there.

Well, exploring around the xfce tools, i came across Fluxbox Tools>Fluxmenu. Fluxmenu is relatively simple and straightforward and it allows me to customize the menu however i see fit.

I hope this is of help to someone.

-shelly