This error is occuring in Xubuntu Natty Narwhal. The only way to fix it was to just remove the entire "other" category from the main menu, which isn't a fix but rather an aesthetic cover.
It seems to happen when an application is once shown in the main menu in some category. Then once that object is hidden it appears in the Other category. Making the object reappear in the original category removes it from the Other category. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to alacarte in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/701330 Title: "Other" category becomes choked Status in “alacarte” package in Ubuntu: Expired Bug description: Binary package hint: alacarte As one works with revising the menus to taste, the "Other" category can end up grotesquely swollen with duplications of entries created or moved about. It appears (to this non-expert) that the problem arises from alacarte somehow furbling up the "Categories" entry when it makes its files. Case in point: Create a new sub-menu of "System", named "Controls". Copy a few entries from the existing "Preferences" and "Administration" menus into "Controls". Now look into the "Other" Applications menu: all the copied-over entries from "Controls" are duplicated in "Other"; moreover, these are not actually "duplicates" but effectively the same entries: delete one in "Others" and it disappears from "Controls". The issue seems to be shown in these two files: Here is /usr/share/applications/Appearance ------------------------------------------ [Desktop Entry] Name=Appearance Comment=Customize the look of the desktop Exec=gnome-appearance-properties %F Icon=preferences-desktop-theme Terminal=false Type=Application StartupNotify=true Categories=GNOME;GTK;Settings;DesktopSettings; OnlyShowIn=GNOME; X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=GNOME X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=gnome-control-center X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=Appearance X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Version=2.32.0 X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=gnome-control-center-2.0 And here is ~/.local/share/applications/Appearance.desktop ---------------------------------------------------------- [Desktop Entry] Name=Appearance Comment=Customize the look of the desktop Exec=gnome-appearance-properties %F Icon=preferences-desktop-theme Terminal=false Type=Application StartupNotify=true Categories=; OnlyShowIn=GNOME; X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=GNOME X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=gnome-control-center X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=Appearance X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Version=2.32.0 X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=gnome-control-center-2.0 Hidden=false (The order of appearance of entries in the second has been changed by me to make its correspondence with the original clearer.) What leaps out is the "Categories=;" entry. An uncategorized entry is, as I understand it, auto-grabbed into the "Others" sub-menu, which apparently acts as a catchall "uncategorized" sort of trash can. The same problem exists with many other files that end up made in the ~/.local/share/applications/ directory; I only presented this one example for simplicity and clarity. Why this happens, I have no idea, but it sure makes a nightmare out of trying to do any substantial menu customization. This is a fresh, clean install of Maverick. Per Synaptic, the alacarte version is 0.13.2-ubuntu1 (but I have had this sort of problem since at least Ubuntu 6 or 7). It would seem to me that when alacarte creates these higher-level customized .desktop files, it should be carrying across all the same data as are in the original, and just adding in only what the user has added or changed (e.g. "Hidden=false "). I don't know what is supposed to happen to that datum if the user copies or moves an entry into a sub-menu not contemplated in the original Category string, but blanking it altogether does not seem a likely member of the list of candidates. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alacarte/+bug/701330/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
