Improvements to the "Help" menu?

johnraff · 2017-03-25 02:34:16

Maybe there are a few more useful support links we could add to the default "Help" menu?
Right now I'm thinking of damo's BL desktop intro and the whole Getting Started section.
Others?

Last edited by johnraff (2017-03-25 02:35:48)

hhh · 2017-03-29 15:12:27

Currently, the first Help menu item is "Forum Basic Help & Support", where damo's Desktop intro is the second item. That intro should be a "Getting Started" topic, IMO.

BTW, if you've just installed BL you're probably not a registered forum member yet, and if you're not logged into the forums that sticky's title reads "Closed:", which could be mistaken for "Obsolete:".

I wouldn't object to "Getting Started" being the first item in our menu, though.

/my thoughts

geekosupremo · 2017-03-29 15:42:29

I second HHH's suggestion in light of our attempts to be newcomer-friendly

johnraff · 2017-04-03 04:01:16

hhh wrote:

Currently, the first Help menu item is "Forum Basic Help & Support", where damo's Desktop intro is the second item. That intro should be a "Getting Started" topic, IMO.

Agreed. At the moment it's got a link in the "List of Useful How-tos" post, but it should have its own place IMO. Move it there from "Help & Support"? The latter is really a Q&A format after all. In fact, maybe all those H&S stickies could be moved over to the "Getting Started" section?

BTW, if you've just installed BL you're probably not a registered forum member yet, and if you're not logged into the forums that sticky's title reads "Closed:", which could be mistaken for "Obsolete:".

Actually it says "Closed" whether you're logged in or not, because... it's closed. ie no comments accepted. If it was moved to "Getting Started" where everything's writable only by mods, that label could go I think.

I wouldn't object to "Getting Started" being the first item in our menu, though.

And "Introduction to the BunsenLabs Desktop" second? BTW if you go straight there, that "Closed" label doesn't appear anyway.

ohnonot · 2017-04-03 07:13:12

i think the help sub (pipe?) menu is the one that has grown the most.
is it possible to outsource it completely, i.e. does openbox have the capability to define custom menus and bind them to a different key/mouse-bind? i was thinking of F1 in the good ol' windows manner.

johnraff · 2017-04-03 08:29:29

The help submenu is a pipe menu, in that it is generated dynamically every time openbox calls for it. However, the content itself is static. It only changes when the package bunsen-pipemenus gets upgraded. That still has an advantage over a hard-coded static menu, though, in that when links go bad, or new useful ones can be added, it can be done from this end without having to ask users to re-copy menu.xml from /usr/share/bunsen/skel.

And, yes, it's possible to define openbox menus outside the root-menu and call them from a keybind defined in rc.xml. I have several menus like that, and although none are pipemenus, there's no reason why they shouldn't be. You just use the menu ID to call it. For that matter, you can define menus outside of the root-menu tree, or even in a different file, and put them in the root-menu by calling their ID. (See the exit menu definition in the BL menu.xml for an example of that.)

E.G. "Tools-menu" is not in my root-menu, it appears from a launcher click in ADeskBar which emulates a combination keypress. 8)
in extra-menus.xml:

<menu id="tools-menu" label="Tools, etc">
    <separator label="System" />
    <item label="Backup">
      <comment>"General backup with rsync"</comment>
      <action name="Execute">
        <startupnotify>
          <enabled>false</enabled>
          <name>"Backup"</name>
          <icon>"applications-system"</icon>
        </startupnotify>
        <execute>urxvt -e /home/john/scripts/backup.sh</execute>
      </action>
    </item>
...
</menu>

rc.xml:

    <keybind key="S-C-W-t">
      <action name="ShowMenu">
        <menu>tools-menu</menu>
      </action>
    </keybind>
...
  <menu>
    <file>extra-menus.xml</file>
    <file>menu.xml</file>
...

Launcher:

xte "keydown Super_L" "keydown Control_L" "keydown Shift_L" "key t" "keyup Shift_L" "keyup Control_L" "keyup Super_L"

That last one would be easier with xdotool of course.

johnraff · 2017-04-07 06:37:45

hhh wrote:

"Forum Basic Help & Support", where damo's Desktop intro is the second item. That intro should be a "Getting Started" topic, IMO.

@damo, OK to move your Desktop tutorial to the "Getting Started" section?

damo · 2017-04-07 09:58:29

johnraff wrote:

hhh wrote:
"Forum Basic Help & Support", where damo's Desktop intro is the second item. That intro should be a "Getting Started" topic, IMO.
@damo, OK to move your Desktop tutorial to the "Getting Started" section?

Done

johnraff · 2017-04-08 04:05:06

^Cool. I took the liberty of removing the "Closed" tag, since that section is only writable by mods anyway.

BTW damo, I wonder if you'd feel inclined to add a short sentence about default fonts and a link to https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=3360 in the "Windows, Fonts and Icons" section? If new users change the GTK font via lxappearance they'll then have to adjust them in obconf and all their text editors etc, in order to have consistency. Changing the default fonts in ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf is a one-stop to keep everything in synch.

damo · 2017-04-08 23:50:37

^ Done

Do you think it is an idea to include the fonts.conf in BLOB?

johnraff · 2017-04-09 09:12:41

damo wrote:

^ Done

Sorry, where? The "Introduction to the BunsenLabs Desktop" is still unchanged.

Do you think it is an idea to include the fonts.conf in BLOB?

Yes, I'd say so, since it's part of the graphical appearance setup.

damo · 2017-04-09 13:02:26

Weird. Anyway, I've submitted the edit again.

johnraff · 2017-04-10 05:10:17

OK it's there now.

johnraff wrote:

If new users change the GTK font via lxappearance they'll then have to adjust them in obconf and all their text editors etc, in order to have consistency. Changing the default fonts in ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf is a one-stop to keep everything in synch.

This was really a message to you, rather than meant to be c/p for the post. Anyway, maybe change it to the first person to match the style of the rest of the tutorial?

#1 2017-03-25 02:34:16

Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#2 2017-03-29 15:12:27

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#3 2017-03-29 15:42:29

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#4 2017-04-03 04:01:16

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#5 2017-04-03 07:13:12

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#6 2017-04-03 08:29:29

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#7 2017-04-07 06:37:45

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#8 2017-04-07 09:58:29

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#9 2017-04-08 04:05:06

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#10 2017-04-08 23:50:37

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#11 2017-04-09 09:12:41

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#12 2017-04-09 13:02:26

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

#13 2017-04-10 05:10:17

Re: Improvements to the "Help" menu?

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