Cascading menu for Cinnamon

[Fixer1234]

The Cinnamon main menu is very counter-intuitive for me. For example:

* The icon descriptions all appear in the lower right corner instead of local to the icon where you're looking.
* Nested menu levels are harder to navigate than in a cascading menu; you can only see the immediate and parent levels, you can't see and jump to an arbitrary higher-level menu branch.

Right-clicking the menu icon provides a mechanism to modify a little of the behavior, but not to change the menu style to cascading. Is there a simple way to replace the default Cinnamon menu with a cascading style menu (Mint 18.2 or newer)?

[AZgl1800]

by Cascading,
are you meaning like Bookmarks are handled in Firefox?

Like this?


https://i.imgur.com/j0Fpcou.jpg

left it a link on purpose, it is a Fullscreen image.

[phd21]

Hi Fixer1234,

I do not know if Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.x has that option anymore.

To "AZgl1500", this is what I think Fixer1234 is referring too.

...

kde_cascading_menu_option.jpg

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kde_cascading_menu_option2.jpg

[Fixer1234]

This is the KDE cascading menu I'm used to:



This is an odd example, but it's 4 levels deep and you can still go directly to anywhere in the top menu. Another example:



Sometimes applications are characterized differently than I tend to think of them, so they end up in odd branches of the menu. I need to check multiple menu locations to find it when I don't use it often. That's easy with a cascading menu, but in the Cinnamon default menu requires figuring out where I am in the menu tree and a lot of reverse navigation.

I couldn't find an option within the Cinnamon menu, but it would work if I could remove the default menu and replace it with a different one. I didn't see another applet described as a cascading menu. The default desktop menus seem to be pretty integrated into the desktop and there isn't an obvious way to load another desktop's menu.

[phd21]

HI Fixer1234,

I just updated my last reply...

FYI: If you click the rimg button in the forum's post or reply toolbar before you paste a remote image link, your image will appear in the forum

Code: Select all

[rimg]https://i.stack.imgur.com/MbxO3.png[/rimg]

...

[Hoser Rob]

This is the KDE cascading menu I'm used to....

Are you one of the people who have switched from Mint KDE to Cinnamon because Mint is dropping KDE? If so I don't think you'll ever really like Cinnamon. After using KDE it just feels amateurish. If you really want to stick Mint I'd suggest going theb install mint 19 XCfce/install KDE & then remove Xfce route.

[AZgl1800]

I just installed Mint 18.3 KDE into Virtualbox and the cascading menu that I saw in the native install does not resemble any of the above pictures.

It is colored differently, and has very few items in each menu.
I did note that it is easy to backup or even go to the top of the menu again,
whereas in 18.3 Cinnamon if you don't like where are, you have to close the menu,
and start all over again.... something that has miffed me a bit.

I like the way Win7 File Manager works, I can use the keyboard exclusively to go deeper, or backup the previous level... that is how I would like for a proper menu to work.


I suppose that different themes in KDE will effect the Menu colors,
or maybe how it works? This is the 1st time I have looked at KDE.

[Fixer1234]

I wasn't aware that Mint was dropping KDE. I recently loaded the 18.3 KDE version. The images I posted above were actually from Mint 17.3. Yeah, each version and theme influences the appearance a little.

Actually, I had tried Cinnamon years ago and didn't like many things about the UI at that time. I was just evaluating the current version. "Amateurish" is the wrong word. It's very polished and well integrated, and there's a lot I like about it. But it is much simpler and less robust than KDE, with less customization. KDE is a bit of a monster and it's hard to find a distro with it implemented really well. KDE now has their own distro, but it isn't quite ready for prime time. Kwheezy had a great implementation based on Debian Stable, but it was one maintainer's experiment and went obsolete.

I can live with what Cinnamon offers except for the menu. I want to give it a fair evaluation against the Mint implementation of KDE (which is imperfect), if there's a way to replace the menu.

[phd21]

Hi AZgl1500,

My pics are from my Linux Mint KDE 18.3 system with the cascading menu which I prefer over the Application Menu, but I also have other menus (app launchers installed).

There are so many ways to customize KDE, the desktop themes will change the colors of menus and other stuff and those can be customized as well. Transparency can also be adjusted.

Hope this helps ...

kde183_DesktopThemes.jpg

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kde183_DesktopThemes2.jpg

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kde183_DesktopThemes3.jpg

[AZgl1800]

I wasn't aware that Mint was dropping KDE. I recently loaded the 18.3 KDE version. The images I posted above were actually from Mint 17.3. Yeah, each version and theme influences the appearance a little.

Actually, I had tried Cinnamon years ago and didn't like many things about the UI at that time. I was just evaluating the current version. "Amateurish" is the wrong word. It's very polished and well integrated, and there's a lot I like about it. But it is much simpler and less robust than KDE, with less customization. KDE is a bit of a monster and it's hard to find a distro with it implemented really well. KDE now has their own distro, but it isn't quite ready for prime time. Kwheezy had a great implementation based on Debian Stable, but it was one maintainer's experiment and went obsolete.

I can live with what Cinnamon offers except for the menu. I want to give it a fair evaluation against the Mint implementation of KDE (which is imperfect), if there's a way to replace the menu.

Being a retired Windows support tech since the dawn of computer time, I am engrained with how that stuff works. So, when Win10 arrived on the scene, I called Calf Rope! and bailed out.

I have piddled with Linux for almost 15 years, on and off. Disenchanted with the "total lack of respect" for the user and the Desktop... so after many LiveCD installs and messing with nearly all of them, I just abandoned the search until I ran across 17.x Cinnamon.... installed that on an old Dell Inspiron and never looked back. at the time, not being sure how I wanted to progress, that Dell was Dual boot to Win7 or Linux.

Later, along came a new laptop, one of the phablets, an ASUS TP500L "screen flops over 360 degrees" which I have never done... hate touchscreens.

by this time, 18.3 was on the scene and Cinnamon grabbed my eye again.... well polished, missing a few minor things that needed to be fixed, but reading this forum has just about resolved all of my complaints.
One of the very last things on my Wish List was a search engine "that really works" and then I read about 'Recoll' and boy, did that fix up my bucket list. I dumped all of the other search engines, they just don't even compare to Recoll.

Cinnamon is so close to Win7's desktop, that the transition was almost immediate.
All of the same keyboard shortcuts work the same, ALT-E brings up Nemo and Nemo looks and feels like Win7's File Manager... so it was easy to get acclimated to.

Cinnamon may not be for everyone, but it darn sure bridges the gap between Linux and a disappointed Win10 escapee.