EXMENEN(1)

📦
version 1.0 · 2 versions
, in debian trixie, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 exmenen — the manual, but make it make sense 💖

okay bestie, so this page is about exmenen and exmendis, two little scripts that turn extra application menus on and off for GNOME, KDE and basically any other desktop that plays by the XDG menu-spec rules. no cap, that's the whole vibe. 🌈

✨ NAME ✨

exmenen, exmendis — enable or disable extra menus for GNOME, KDE and other XDG menu-spec compliant desktops. slay. 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

exmenen (--system | --local) [ module ]
exmendis (--system | --local) [ module ]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so this manual page is here to briefly document the exmenen and exmendis commands. short and sweet, we love that for us.

exmenen is a script that enables the extra applications menu you specify — either system-wide or just for you, per-user. the way it does this? it creates symlinks. iconic behaviour, honestly:

  • inside /etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged/ for the system wide situation 🏛️
  • inside ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/menus/applications-merged/ for the per-user situation 🙋

and listen — if the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable is unset, its default is taken to be ${HOME}/.config. so don't panic, it knows where to go. 💜

exmendis does the mirror-image thing: it disables an extra applications menu by removing those same symlinks. bye bye menu 🫶

✨ important lil' reassurance, bestie: it is not an error to enable a menu which is already enabled, or to disable one which is already disabled. so if you're not sure whether you already did it — just do it again. no harm, no foul. 😌

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

exmendis --system electronics
exmenen --local electronics

so what's going on here? this pair disables the system wide extra electronics menu, and then enables it for the current user instead. switching from a whole-system situation to a just-you situation. main character energy fr fr. 🔥

👑 FILES 👑

  • /usr/share/extra-xdg-menus — the directory holding the .menu files that define all the available extra modules. this is where the goods live. 🍓
  • /etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged — directory with links to the files in extra-xdg-menus for system-wide enabled extra menus.
  • ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/menus/applications-merged — directory with links to the files in extra-xdg-menus for per-user enabled extra menus. and heads up (iykyk): if XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset, the directory used will be ${HOME}/.config/menus/applications-merged instead. ✨

💜 AUTHOR 💜

this manual page was written by Peter Clifton <pcjc2@cam.ac.uk> for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, since it's a Debian-specific script that ships with the package. 💌

and the lore doesn't stop there, bestie: exmenen, exmendis and this very manpage were derived from scripts and documentation written by Daniel Stone for the apache2 Debian package. we stan a lineage. 🌟

and that's the whole page, angel 🧚 — penned 13 January 2008, living under the EXMENEN(1) banner in the General Commands Manual. go forth and merge those application menus 💖✨🎀🦋🌸

📦 where this page comes from