gnome-main-menu is missing recent applications

[Radoslaw]

Binary package hint: gnome-main-menu

gnome-main-menu is missing one of it's core feature that exists in original Suse version - recent applications. The problem is that functionality requires patches for gnome-panel and gnome-desktop (source package) which are not included in standard Ubuntu. While it is relatively easy to obtain and apply these patches from opensuse reporitory the proposition is to do one of the following:

1. add the patches to Ubuntu versions of gnome-panel and libgnome-desktop packages

2. provide alternative versions of gnome-panel and libgnome-desktop packages, that will be suggested by gnome-main-menu

[Radoslaw (radraw)]

A workaround to this bug could be manually patching and recompiling gnome-panel and gnome-desktop packages to add missing "Recent applications" functionality to gnome-main-menu. Below there is instruction for patching the packages . The commands, package names and versions used in the instruction are examples using current Ubuntu 10.04 amd64 version.

1. Download gnome-panel and gnome-desktop rpm source package from Opensuse repository.

For Ubuntu 10.04 packages from Opensuse 11.3 repository http://download.opensuse.org/source/distribution/11.3/repo/oss/suse/src/ should be fine.

current (as of writting this) packages to download would be:

gnome-panel-2.30.0-4.13.src.rpm
gnome-desktop-2.30.0-1.14.src.rpm

Place the packages for example in opensuse subdirectory.

2. Extract patches

From gnome-panel src.rpm extract:

gnome-panel-recently-used-apps.patch

From gnome-desktop src.rpm extract:

gnome-desktop-recently-used-apps.patch

You can use the following commands (or alternativelly for example file-roller):

cd opensuse
rpm2cpio gnome-panel-2.30.0-4.13.src.rpm | cpio -i gnome-panel-recently-used-apps.patch
rpm2cpio gnome-desktop-2.30.0-1.14.src.rpm | cpio -i gnome-desktop-recently-used-apps.patch
cd ..

3. Install build dependencies and get source packages

sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-panel
sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-desktop
apt-get source gnome-panel
apt-get source gnome-desktop

4. Patch and compile packages

Assuming that extracted patches are in opensuse subdirectory:

cd gnome-panel-2.30.2/gnome-panel
patch -p1 < ../../opensuse/gnome-panel-recently-used-apps.patch
cd ..
fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage
cd ..

cd gnome-desktop-2.30.2/
patch -p1 < ../opensuse/gnome-desktop-recently-used-apps.patch
fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage
cd ..

5. Optionally use deb-reversion to prevent from overwriting built packages during system upgrade

For libgnome-desktop it is fairy simple:

deb-reversion libgnome-desktop-2-17_2.30.2-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb

the command should produce file:

libgnome-desktop-2-17_2.30.2-0ubuntu1LOCAL.1_amd64.deb

For gnome-panel, since it's changelog file is just symlink some workaround is needed:

cp /usr/share/doc/libpanel-applet2-0/changelog.Debian.gz /tmp
export LOGFILE=/tmp/changelog.Debian.gz
fakeroot deb-reversion gnome-panel_2.30.2-0ubuntu0.2_amd64.deb

the command should produce file:

gnome-panel_2.30.2-0ubuntu0.2LOCAL.1_amd64.deb

6. Install patched packages

example assuming that previous, optional point was performed (deb-reversion used):

sudo dpkg -i gnome-panel_2.30.2-0ubuntu0.2LOCAL.1_amd64.deb libgnome-desktop-2-17_2.30.2-0ubuntu1LOCAL.1_amd64.deb

7. Logout and login again to make the changes take effect. Now you can test the functionality - run an application that is not in your favourite list, it should appear at Recent applications list.