Just in case someone else has the same issue, I found a nice little package called menu-xdg, which creates the right .desktop files, and also merges them into another file, so that it's easy to include the whole menu from fluxbox on lxpanel's menu altogether in one swipe. Also you can add individual items pretty easily. It is a nice set of scripts, and it wasn't too hard to make it work. You need to install menu-xdg, and then run #update-menus to get it to do it's thing.
I tried several different ways of adding the debian menu items to lxpanel's menu button, which I understand is using some kind of freedesktop.org cross-platform idea, instead of package 'menu' that I understand now may be proprietary to debian. I think the freedesktop way sounds real interesting, but you know, I got to have my xman and my goofy eyeballs ok?
One way is to edit the file /etc/xdg/menus/lxde-applications.menu and add this in an appropriate place:
Code: Select all
<!-- The Debian menu -->
<Menu>
<Name>Debian</Name>
<MergeFile>debian-menu.menu</MergeFile>
<Directory>Debian.directory</Directory>
</Menu>
I put it right above the line that says -- Accessories submenu -- near the beginning of the file.
What this does is cause lxpanel to insert debian-menu.menu as a menu item called 'Debian' and everything is nice and neat under a heading of Debian > Applications. Not too bad, kind of buried though... and there is duplication of the apps that already have an entry.
Another way I like is make a new subdir named /etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged and copy the debian-menu.menu link into it. This makes a menu that is more integrated because lxpanel is already setup to look for files here and merge them, still a lot of duplication, but I think I like it better this way. Now I can have all my apps back on my huge old menu again, and xman is right there where it should be. After removing the file, it seems that just having this subdirectorypresent causes lxpanel to read the right file, a little odd but no bother really.
Also I tried copying individual .desktop files from /var/lib/menu-xdg/applications/menu-xdg into /usr/share/applications this makes a new menu item named "Other" with the apps in it. Might go this way, a little more easier to find things. I think this way might get broken possibly if an older app is upgraded and certain filenames or locations change, we'll see.
The scripts are in /etc/menu-methods they could probably be edited to better integrate the apps into desktop-style categories, but I will leave that for someone else.