Public bug reported: Binary package hint: alacarte
In the alacarte menu editor, some items cannot be moved into new menus ("folders"). PROBLEM: Steps to reproduce the problem: 1. Right click on the Ubuntu logo .. Applications .. Places .. System area in gnome-panel. 2. Select "Edit Menus". This launches the (very temperamental and ill-documented) alacarte menu editor. 3. Unter "Menus:", click on "Applications" (expand this menu if it isn't already). 4. Find and select an item that has a (forward) slash in its name, e.g. "Applications -- CD/DVD Creator" or "Sound & Video -- GnomeBaker CD/DVD Writer" (if no such item is installed, you'll have to install/create one to reproduce the problem). 5. Drag and drop that item from the "Items:" list on the right hand side to another menu in the "Menus:" list on the left hand side. Normally, with items that don't have a slash in their name, this would make a copy of the item appear in the destination menu, switch the view to the destination menu (which is questionable behaviour), but NOT delete the item in the original menu you dragged the item out of. You have to go back to the original menu and delete the item there afterwards to properly and successfully complete the move. Apparently dragging and dropping in alacarte copies, and doesn't move. Shift-dragging appears to move, but does absolutely nothing. But that's "normal" for alacarte. (I said it was temperamental.) This bug report is not about this "normal" behaviour. (If this bugs you, then you go submit another bug. Don't hijack this one.) What this bug is about is this: When trying to drag and drop an item that has a slash in its name to a new menu/folder in the above way, the copy never appears in the new menu, and the view never properly switches to the new menu (the display of the "Menus:" and "Items:" lists becomes inconsistent at this point; the "Menus:" list shows the new menu as selected, but the "Items:" list still displays the contents of the old menu). This is because alacarte chokes on the slash in the item name; it doesn't properly escape it. Additional information can be gathered by closing alacarte, relaunching it from the command line, and trying to perform the aforedescribed drag and drop operation again then: $ alacarte Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/Alacarte/MainWindow.py", line 421, in on_menu_tree_drag_data_received self.editor.copyItem(item, new_parent) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/Alacarte/MenuEditor.py", line 290, in copyItem keyfile.write(open(out_path, 'w')) IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/<MYUSERNAME>/.local/share/applications/CD/DVD Creator.desktop' It appears that alacarte looks for an item called "DVD Creator.desktop" in ~/.local/share/applications/CD/, while in truth there is an item called "CD/DVD Creator.desktop" in ~/.local/share/applications/. Just one more reason to wonder if there's a good alternative to the gentle horror that is alacarte. WORKAROUND: The above problem can be worked around by first renaming the item in question (e.g. rename "CD/DVD Creator" to "CD and DVD Creator" or "GnomeBaker CD/DVD Writer" to "GnomeBaker CD and DVD Writer"), moving the renamed item as described above, and then renaming the item in the new location/menu back to its original name that included the slash. ADDITIONAL INFO: - Diagnosed on Ubuntu 9.04 (I'll try to reproduce with the Ubuntu 9.10 live CD and update this bug.) - alacarte version: 0.11.10-0ubuntu1 MORE SCHTUFF FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES: - From man alacarte: "alacarte is a program that for editing freedesktop.org complient menus." (This is basically the entire man page. I also feel very complient today. Language proficiency is a skill that for writing man pages.) - From apt-cache show alacarte: "easy GNOME menu editing tool \ Alacarte is an easy-to-use menu editor for GNOME" (Riiiiight.) "It works with the freedesktop.org menu specification and should work with any desktop environment that uses the spec." (For some value of "works".) ProblemType: Bug Architecture: i386 DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04 NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia Package: alacarte 0.11.10-0ubuntu1 PackageArchitecture: all ProcEnviron: PATH=(custom, user) LANG=en_IE.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash SourcePackage: alacarte Uname: Linux 2.6.28-17-generic i686 ** Affects: alacarte (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New ** Tags: apport-bug i386 -- Cannot move some items into new menus in alacarte menu editor https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/502136 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Desktop Bugs, which is subscribed to alacarte in ubuntu. -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs