jessie: unable to edit menus as user Pi

[paulie]

I have been trying to add /edit menu items using the option from the menu (editor) as user Pi.

I can bring up options and add them, but they won't stick.

Looking at the directory in which the *.desktop files reside, I can see that they are all owned by user root.
This means that user Pi cannot edit them, as X has been started as Pi, without sudo rights.

Obviously, the files can be edited from a terminal using 'sudo nano', but that kinda defeats the object.

Can anyone else confirm this?

And is this how it was meant to work?

[Rive]

I had the same issue. (I was trying to create and add images/files to a dir in /usr/local/)

Code: Select all

gksu pcmanfm

Will allow you to edit the contents via file manager as 'root'. My understanding is the only dir 'pi' user has ownership of is /pi/.

[jojopi]

Looking at the directory in which the *.desktop files reside, I can see that they are all owned by user root.

Name "the directory in which the *.desktop files reside". (Such files exist in at least a dozen places.)

The way things are supposed to work is that if a change will affect every user, only root can make that change. If it solely affects the current user, no special privilege is required.

Most applications read two sets of configuration; the system-wide one in /usr or /etc, and the per-user one in ~/.SOMEWHERE.

It is possible to add to LXDE menus on a per-user basis by creating *.desktop files in ~/.local/share/applications/. Unfortunately LXDE has no good interactive menu editor, so this has to be done by editing text files. I am not sure it is worth the effort.

For more gory details: http://wiki.lxde.org/en/LXDE:Questions# ... in_menu.3F

(It can be a bad idea to edit system-wide files. Apart from the risk of breaking the whole system, there is also the problem that many such files belong to the packaging system and could be reverted by a future apt-get command.)

[Rive]

(It can be a bad idea to edit system-wide files. Apart from the risk of breaking the whole system, there is also the problem that many such files belong to the packaging system and could be reverted by a future apt-get command.)

Exactly.

That is why when I made changes to my menu settings /desktop preferences/etc, I created a new dir in /user/local/ (instead of making changes in /user/share/).

I copied over what i wanted from user/share/ to the new /local/ directory, added the new content, gave it the same dir name, and that was it. Done. Easy Peasy.