[Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-5) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

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with three easy to follow steps![/Spiffy Advertisement Line]

Based on the concepts described in the Making folders and managing icons thread, ApMeFo is trying to automate the process that makes it possible to organise the application menu in custom made folders.


Warnings:

Disclaimer Pt 1: To activate the Application Menu Folder functionality an integral system file has to be modified (hildon.menu). Corruption of this file will lead to hildon (the graphical framework of Maemo) no longer working. Though ApMeFo SHOULD be save to use, you're trying this at your own risk.

In the unlikely event that hildon gets messed up, please refer to this post: http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=108

Disclaimer Pt 2: None of the concepts behind this application were created by me - I only collected the information provided by the kind people of aforementioned thread, compiled them into a simple tutorial and then created ApMeFo to automate the process. Big thanks to all the people out there that helped demystify hildon and of course to those who helped me get this beta up and running.

Disclaimer Pt 3: Currently, ApMeFo is meant to be used with PR 1.2 on the N900, mainly because that's the device I'm working (and can thus test) with. I don't have any information on whether this works on other versions and other devices - but of course would be happy to hear about other people's experiences with them!



Another note on corrupted hildon.menu files:

Pressing the Deactivate button in the (De-)Activate tab will delete the hildon.menu file - which will then automatically be replaced by the default. It's a nifty failback system native to hildon already.

So to play it save, just don't close the application until you affirmed that your application menu is still working and after hitting Deactivate everything should be fine again.

(When I manually messed up my hildon.menu, all running applications where still fully functional - I could just not start any new.)


Instructions:

Right now this is just a beta version and lacking both user and code documentation, so here's a short explanation of how it works:

• All the changes made to your system will be invisible as long as ApMeFo is deactivated (and, unless you already created a hildon.menu file according to my tutorial, this is the default).
  
  So before you start creating your folders, you might want to go to the (De-)Activate tab and hit the Active button. If everything worked as it should, your applications menu should stay the same, as we didn't yet create any folders.
  
  
• To create a new folder, go to the Create/Edit tab and enter the name of your folder.
  
  Then select an icon to go with it. If you already know the name of the icon, simply enter it (without the trailing extension, so "filemanager_games_folder" instead of "filemanager_games_folder.png"), else you can select one from the popup list the button next to the input field opens. Note that because of the multitude of icons to load, this might take a couple of seconds to load.
  
  Hit Create/Edit and open your application menu to check for your newly created folder.
  
  
• To edit the icon of an existing folder, simply enter it's name or select it from the popup list (similar to the icon list), then choose an icon and hit Create/Edit again. Opening the application menu should now display the new icon for your folder.
  
  
• To delete a folder (and move it's otherwise unallocated content back to the main menu), simply go to the Delete tab, select the name of the folder from the list and hit Delete Folder.
  
  
• The Add Apps tab will let you add any of the available applications to one of your folders - or remove them and put them back into the main menu.
  
  First, choose your folder and wait for it's current content to display in the list underneath it's name.
  
  To remove one of the applications, select it from this list and hit the "-" button. To add one, hit the "+" button and select it from the popup list.
  
  To change the position of an application within this folder, simply select it and hit ^ (move up) or v (move down).
  
  Hit Update Folder in order to save your changes.

Troubleshooting:

If you encounter any problems with using ApMeFo, please choose "Diagnosis Tool" from the ApMeFo menu, hit "Copy to Clipboard" and paste the output here in this thread with a short description of your problem.

Advanced users might also go for a more complete error message by opening X Terminal, entering and trying the operation in question again. If there's any output in your X Terminal, please post it here.

Right now this application can be found at extra-devel under the name "apmefo".


Changelog:

v 0.9-6:

• Add compatibility with Catorise. Both applications can now be installed next to each other without either one messing up the other. To switch between them, simply choose Activate or Deactivate from within ApMeFo.
• Addes support for UTF-8 folder names. Not that non-Ascii characters will be replace by "-" in filenames only (.menu and .directory files).
• Applications names are now displayed in their localised versions.
• Most icons should be displayed next to their applications now. Some applications use rather exotic places to store their icons, though - those might not be visible in the application list.
• UTF-8 application names will no longer result in the application to be absent from the application list.
• Applications set to NonDisplay or not set to Type=Application should no longer be visible in the application list.
• Applications represented by a symlink .desktop file should now display correctly in the application list.

v 0.9-5:

• Folder and application list are now sorted alphabetically (Unix style - so expect "a" to be somewhere after "Z"!).
• Applications can now be multi-selected in the list.
• Applications can now be re-arranged within their folder. Select any application in the (non-popup) list and then hit "^" or "v" to move it up or down.
• If you manually edit your .menu files, ApMeFo should no longer override your Exclude-entries.
• Couple of minor fixes have been included.

v 0.9-4:

• Readme has been relocated to the menu bar
• Instead, (De-)Activate is the first tab now
• The link provided in the warning text is now clickable
• Diagnosis Tool has been added to the menu bar

v 0.9-3:

• Creating new folders should work now. Submenus directory is getting created in case it's missing.

v 0.9-2:

• Fixed .desktop file
• Fixed opening existing folders in the Create/Edit tab

v 0.9-1:

• Initial release

Attachments:

Most of the icons in the above screenshot are vanilla Maemo icons. I've attached the three that are not to this post so everybody can recreate the screenshot by copying those items to their "home/user/.local/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/hildon/", rebooting and then selecting those icons from within ApMeFo.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Great !!! keep the work !

This is an essential application for N900 users :cool:

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

I would LOVE this application. But trackercfg has an option restore the default file it edits. Could something similar be implemented here, where the original file is backupped? In case of the worst?

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Is it safe to install it while Catorise is already installed (could we use ApMeFo to edit the structure from Catorise)?

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Thanks for bringing this up, pantera1989!

Pressing the Deactivate button in the (De-)Activate tab will delete the hildon.menu file - which will then automatically be replaced by the default hildon.menu file. It's a nifty failback system native to hildon already.

So to play it save, just don't close the application until you affirmed that your application menu is still working and everything should be fine.
(When I manually messed up my hildon.menu, all running applications where still fully functional - I could just not start any new.)

Thanks again, I'll add that to the first post.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

To be true, I don't know since I never installed Catorise myself. I don't know how it works, but if it also modifies hildon.menu, both applications would most definitely clash. :(

(That is, most probably nothing bad would be happening - you would just loose the functionality of the one that was used first.)

I'll give this a try later - no need to mess up your device when I can do so with my own. :D

[Edit]Okay, did take a look at the source files, and it IS using hildon.menu, too - so both applications would most probably just override each other.

I was planning to implementing this system in one of the future releases, but what I can tell from the Catorise source (which isn't much since I never could warm up to Perl :D ), Catorise seems to be more powerful on that account.

I'll keep you up to date on that - maybe, after installing it, I might be able to find a way to simply incorporate the files created by Catorise.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

I installed the 0.9-2 and the icon open the app. Click on Create / Edit folder and the message goes out as if it had been created, go to Add Apps tab, select an application and update any folder, just missing the tab (De-) Activate and active and all that happens is that arrange icons in alphabetical order

You know what?

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

I have the following feedback for you after playing around with the application.

First of all the application did not work. I think it's permissions like you said. Here is the output:

Now to feedback regarding the working app.

1. The menu that comes up each time with the apps to add is too slow. Could the content be somehow cached on the app's startup? I doubt that someone will install anything new while the app is running. This way the first time loading will take time, but further tries will be much faster.
2. Could the apps menu let you select multiple items at a time? Like some menus in the browser?
3. The apps menu should be updated. If you select an app it should be removed from the menu.
4. Could there be an option to sort alphabetically once added in the folder?
5. I used the de-activate option. It works but the device become unresponsive, forcing you to restart. Could this process be a bit more fluid?

** EDIT ** While running it from xterm as root, it still couldn't create the folder, but pressing de-activate didn't make the device unresponsive and the menu was restored.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

That sounds strange, not sure what could trigger that behaviour.

Did you get the "ApMeFo has been activated!" message after pressing the Activate button?

And do you have any other applications installed that modify the application menu (like Catorise and MyMenu)? While they modify a DIFFERENT hildon.menu, they still seem to have some sort of strange effect on ApMeFo.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Short update: Installed Catorise and while it does modify hildon.menu, it uses the system-wide instead of the one in your home folder.

So, IN THEORY one could at least safely switch between both applications (deactivate ApMeFo to use Catorise, activate it to use ApMeFo). Sadly, for some strange reason some of the applications will still be displayed in the main menu despite being put in custom folders. Not sure why this happens, as the user hildon.menu should completely overrule the system-wide one.

Well, at least neither one of the two is harming the other (once I removed Catorise, ApMeFo was back to it's normal behaviour).

Oh, and it seems Catorise DOES use the system described by lemmyslender, so once it is included you could at least get similar results to Catorise. Just by far less comfortably so... ;)

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Great, thanks for the information!
Then I think I will wait for your updated version and then uninstall Catorise so that I don't have to create every folder / shortcut.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

If when I click to activate I get the message and I have not installed catorise or MyMenu , but hey it does not matter I hope future updates will serve me.

I do not want to be heavy

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Actually, that doesn't sound like a permission problem, but rather like writing the folder in the first place somehow failed.

Did you get the "Your folder was successfully saved!" message when creating the folder? Or did you try to edit a folder you manually added before installing the application?

Normally, if there's any problem with writing the .menu file, there should be a warning be displayed - I'll take a look at that part, maybe this slipped through while cleaning the code.

First of all, thanks a lot for those suggestions!

1) I was (and still am) not sure how to handle this. Simply storing the values would be easy, but then the whole application could turn rather unstable thanks to modifications (both internal and external) to the files involved. So I'm swaying between making this faster or keeping it more stable. :confused:

2) Great idea, I'll take a look into that - should be fairly easy to implement, though.

3) Do you mean from the popup list? That would be nice, true - though for larger folders this might further slow down the popup. I'll give it a try.

4) In the actual application menu (it already should do that) or in the list on the Add Apps tab? The latter (and maybe in the popup list, too - but again this could turn out to be a performance problem) I'll put right on top of my todo list. I just realised how confusing the non-alphabetic list really is. :D

5) Sadly, that's something I have no influence on. Hildon is becoming unresponsive because it suddenly "lost" it's hildon.menu (though normally this shouldn't take any longer than a couple of seconds). Catorise is suffering from the same problem, so I fear nobody has found a solution to this yet...

Also, opening the application menu right after making changes (no matter whether it's adding folders or de-/activating ApMeFo) will result in a "No applications found" message at first, but this, also, should go away after a few seconds.

After that I haven't experienced any more slow-downs, so this should only happen right after editing the menu.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

from personal experience you should uninstall catorise, it seems that it drains the battery faster, a proccess of his, is always working at 5% of CPU, quickly draining the battery. This was discussed, search the forums but thats my personal input, i really fealt a difference between having it or not.

I will now test apmefo :)

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

instillation doesnt seem to work with pelota world cup widget. The icon shows up, but it doesnt start. apt-get -f install shows dependency problems with homescreen loader due to pelota widget.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Regarding my fourth suggestion I do not know if the app automatically sorts alphabetically. I haven't been able to create a folder so far.

I create a folder and get a message "Folder was successfuly created or saved". I can't remember the exact message. Then I added a few apps to test to the folder. Select update folder. Go to deactivate and I select activate. I get a message that it is activated. The result is a mess in the menu (regarding sorting). The apps I select into the folder are still in the menu and the folder is no where to be seen.

Regarding my third suggestion, I suggested that the apps you select to add to the folder in ApMeFo be removed from the pop up menu because one might try to add two apps in different folders. What happens if that happens?

My first suggestion is not necessary if you implement selecting multiple items at a time. Maybe checkboxes? Opening the popup menu for each app is very slow, but allowing you to select multiple items will reduce the number of times you need to open the popup menu. So for the sake of stability this could be omitted.

Regarding my fifth suggestion I started the app normally, editted the folders (still can't create anything) and activated. Then deactivated and the menu was restored without the system becoming unresponsive. So this seems a bit random.

Anyway I will look into why i can't create folders when I get home. I am on my N900 and I have to look at the error on a different screen. Switching to xterm to see the error each time is too confusing.

So far it seems promising though. I missed the folders from Symbian. FYI I don't have catorise or MyMenu installed.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

I have the same problem. Am I missing sth?

Idea of this app is so brilliant:)

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

But you're not! Actually, those messages help me sort this out, so you're helping me by posting what's wrong! :)

Ah, thanks - I think I understand now. So it seems Catorise intercepts the installation of applications, looks at what category they are stored at and directly writes them to the hildon.menu. Other than the battery drain that actually really neat.

So it IS superior to adding default categories, and that will be quite a big drawback of ApMeFo compared to Catorise. Then again, I never wanted to replace it, anyway. :D

Okay, you got me stumped there. Don't know enough about package dependencies (that's what you get for being a pampered Ubuntu user :D) to really understand what's going on. I'll try to learn more about this, but unless one of the experts happens to stroll in this might take a while.

Sorry for the inconveniences... :(

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Apparently I'm not the only, and already are posting in some forums.

I hope it is resolved

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

True, sorry I forgot that - yes, it should sort everything alphabetically. But good thing I misunderstood, since that led to the realisation that sorting the lists inside the application has to be done, too. :D

I'm staring at my code but for the life of me I can't find a reason for that. I now know why you're getting the success message despite folder creation failed, but I don't know why it fails in the first place.

This really shouldn't be a permission problem as all the files we're manipulating reside inside the home folder. I'll try to get further into this!

Ah, I see! No, that's actually not a problem. You can add applications to as many folders as you want - I actually have my browser in three different folders. :D

And even when you happen to add an application to a folder it's already in, nothing happens. The system used to store folders internally prevents duplicate entries.

Okay, I'll implement the multi selection so we can give it a try and see whether that makes waiting for the popup less of an annoyance.

I once thought about implementing a system that would wait for hildon to power down before editing hildon.menu - but not only would that require a daemon, it would also mean you would have to reboot after every change.

Guess all I can do right now is wait for someone (or something - PR 1.3? :D ) to find a way to make hildon less vulnerable to realtime changes.

Thanks so much - not sure whether you realise how much you're helping with getting rid of those bugs and design shortcomings!

No, I'm quite sure it's actually ME missing something. :D

With so many people getting the same error, at least I know that it's somewhere inside my code instead of a quirk of a single device.

All thanks should be directed towards the genii at the aforementioned thread (and the people who were asking to turn this into an actual application). I myself didn't contribute much to the idea, I was just the one stupid enough to say "I think this should be easy to do". :D

Thanks - like I said, knowing that a lot of people are getting this error is already helping a lot!

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Doh, I'm a complete idiot!

Of course creating the file fails - I'm trying to write it to a folder that doesn't exist on most people's system. The only reason it worked for me was that I already messed with my menu manually, so I already had created the folder in question.

I'm uploading the (hopefully) fixed version now...

Thanks again to everybody for pointing this out!

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Yes when I said fix the error I was going to see if the folders existed. You saved me the trouble, I just arrived home and was about to get started. I am no coder, but I usually can find the reason for most quirks and bugs without resorting to the code.

Linux does seem to have trouble sometimes when creating new directories. And deleting not empty directory.

One thing I am trying to solve (not related with ApMeFo) right now is a shortcut for Little Big Adventure (LBA). It is very nice and even has an icon. The game boots but those damn permissions. When it comes to save the game quits. It doesn't have the permission to write the file. Not even using xterm, the game still quits. It works only when opened as root. Ah well..I will solve it one day.

The new version works now.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

In this version apmefo_0.9-3 you mean?

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Now if friend, thank you very much

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

It can be pretty picky, true. But then again it's the coder's fault for being too lazy to make checks before saving. :D

Did you try to chmod the folder to give non-admin users full permission to it?

It is - I hope it fixes those problems! :)

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Could you please add a changelog to your first post?

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Done! :)

Did anybody manage to create a folder with the new version?

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

I have the following problem:

I can create folders, but as soon as I put apps in a folder and click "Update Folder" but then nothing happens.

Even if I click on "Activate" and then not even the folders are displayed.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Congratulations, all right

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

So we have a 3th "app" in the repos that changes the menu structure...

MyMenu
Catorise
ad now this :p ApMeFo

Honestly, I like the icons from MyMenu :p

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-2) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

In fairness to Catorise: the battery drain is a result of a hildon-desktop bug that Catorise/MyMenu expose (see http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=54462&page=5 and https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10412)

Interesting issue is whether ApMeFo does so as well?

HA

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Okay, works fine on my device, so I guess we're back to the "what is the difference between your and my device"? :D

This time it can't be because of a difference in the file system, as the folder itself was already created by ApMeFo.

Let's see, did you get the "Your folder was successfully saved!" message or did nothing happen at all?

If you feel save around X Term, would you mind trying and posting the output when trying to update the folder? I guess that would be the easiest way to try and find a solution.

And each of them has their own strong and weak points. Like how (despite it being one great piece of code) I never used Catorise because the standard categories just don't make any sense to this strange little mind of mine. :D

Now you can actually choose between "easy to use and hassle free" and "fully customisable". Choice is always a good thing.

(Btw, you could always use the MyMenu icons with ApMeFo, too - you'd just have to make sure they're in the right path. :D)

Strange, according to those messages it SHOULD be happening with ApMeFo, too - both applications are using hildon.menu to get things done.

But no matter how often and how fast I move in and out of folders, my hildon keeps behaving like a good little GUI framework.

Maybe it's because Catorise is using the system wide hildon.menu while ApMeFo only writes to the .local one?

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Good news then! HA

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Great app, installed it and it works. But I deactivated and found a nice easter egg. It causes the apps to restore to alphabetical order!

Sadly it's to slow for me to add each app. Hehe I think doing it by hand would even be faster. So until then I'll stick to the default, but I'll write what you asked for a while back if you still want one.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

great app, spent a good hour going cross eyed and have sorted all my apps into folders, can you tell me the path to the file so i can back it up.

i didnt run in to any bugs what so ever, but is there any possibilty of being able to rearrange the folders and icons in the future?

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Couple of things I found (0.9-3):

As you might guess, I hand customized my menu (haven't had mymenu or categorize installed). So I already had custom icons and several .directory files (in .local).

1) Found my custom icons no problem. excellent.
2) Found my .directory files, read them, showed them in the list of folders, cool. Allowed me to edit my existing folders. It even kept my Category tags intact.

But it moved my Excludes up into the Includes, you may want to keep that in mind.

3) The select application list could benefit from a couple things:
Alphabetical sort
There are some items that have "NoDisplay=true" in the desktop file. These shouldn't be in the list.
Localization? for instance Media Player shows as mp_app_name in the list?


Otherwise, stellar effort liking it very much.

Other suggestions, I'll second removing already added apps from the list, make it easier to find recently insatalled apps. Add the ability to add apps on the main hildon.menu. I had a couple apps in front of my folders, now they're at the end.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

i quite liked the fact that it doesnt remove them once youve added, its nice to be able to add an icon more than once, like gpodder, thats in my media and web folder, as well as a few others. maybe thats just me who wants to do that though lol

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

Just now and again reloaded N900 rebooted and now all works with version 0.9.3.


Small improvement idea: :)
It would be nice if one of the folders within himself can decide in what sequence the corresponding apps are displayed. In short, I want to sort the apps in the folder itself.

And it would be possible in the App-listing for the folder to identify the apps have already been assigned to a folder? For example, by a check mark or the name of the folder where the app is integrated.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

I get this, trying to update menu..

Using global firmware.

Re: [Announce] ApMeFo (beta 0.9-3) - Create custom folders in your Application Menu
 

I don't like the idea to remove this feature completly.
It should be configurable or, in the better case remove already added apps in default and place a "show all" button near to the menu to show all apps in the moment you want to add one. :)