Lyx and Adobe Reader menus are unreadable under Unity

[apvieira]

Binary package hint: unity

I am not sure whether this bug is related to unity, mutter, or other package. The fact is that when my Dell Mini 9 is running Maverick with the Unity interface, neither the menus in Lyx nor those in Adobe Reader are readable in the upper bar. The different categories (File, Edit, View, etc.) for Adobe Reader still apear to the right of the close, minimize and maximize buttons, but the corresponding options are blank. For Lyx, nothing appears to the right of the three buttons.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: unity 0.2.34-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-19.28-generic 2.6.35.3
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-19-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
Architecture: i386
CheckboxSubmission: 91f4c43abae522e45c330c1107c8c514
CheckboxSystem: d00f84de8a555815fa1c4660280da308
Date: Sun Sep 5 21:28:19 2010
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity

[Timo Kluck (tkluck)]

I run into the same problem. LyX (and a web browser) are pretty much all I need on a computer, and this is stopping me right now from using unity on a daily basis.

Given that LyX uses qt widgets, I thought I'd also check other programs that depend on libqtgui4. However, the menus in VLC and in Scribus (trunk) work as expected.

[Timo Kluck (tkluck)]

One thing I can think of which may be causing this problem is that LyX constantly updates the menu items based on the current document view. The menu "Navigate" contains entries and submenus for all chapters in the current document.

[Timo Kluck (tkluck)]

Just one more message: LyX gives this message in debug output:

QVariantMap DBusMenuExporterDBus::GetProperties(int, const QStringList&): Condition failed: action

which is clearly related. This message does not appear in a gnome session. It appears right after the message

GuiView.cpp(519): Passed Geometry 576x966+58+24

Well this is all I can find for now.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

 Hi Timo

Lyx should be fixable, given it's open source. Adobe Reader is trickier.

Mark

[Aurélien Gâteau (agateau)]

Lyx correctly exposes its menubar over DBus. The menu shows up in GNOME and KDE but not in Unity or in indicator-loader. Marking Application Menu Indicator as affected.

As for Adobe Reader, I couldn't test it because it ships as a 32bit binary, which thus cannot load the appmenu gtk extension (my two computers are 64bits).

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

I can confirm the problem with acroread on my 32-bit desktop install. I
see the top menu in the panel, but the menu entries themselves are
blank. Screenshot to follow.

Mark

[Sultan Al-Isaiee (foxoman)]

confirm in lyx with no menu and adobe reader with blank menu just like Mark's screenshot :)

screenshot to lyx

[cristo (ccristoo)]

A workaround for Lyx (it probably works for acroread too) can be found here: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/netbook-meta/+question/134649

[fx (herrmannfx)]

Both the workarounds for Lyx do not work with acroread, starting it in a terminal with 'QT_X11_NO_NATIVE_MENUBAR=1 acroread' or 'APPMENU_DISPLAY_BOTH=1 acroread' do not bring the menus back (in my case, running acrobat with unity under 10.10).

I get multiple error messages like '(acroread:2159): LIBDBUSMENU-GLIB-WARNING **: Error getting the properties from ID 224: The ID supplied 224 does not refer to a menu item we have' with varying ID-Numbers. No idea how to solve this.

[fx (herrmannfx)]

Just acknowledged that 'APPMENU_DISPLAY_BOTH=1 acroread' is working fine, because it shows a second menubar.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

@fx, "fine" in the sense that the local menubar works, but the global
one doesn't?

[fx (herrmannfx)]

@Mark Shuttleworth, yep. I get an additional local menubar which shows the entries allright, while the global one does not. Its seems to be a problem of font-color (grey on a grey background), because if you choose an entry "blindly" a command is triggerd (eg. "close" or "print").

[sdaau (sd-imi)]

Just wanted to note that #619811 seems to have had a fix released, however, I still experience the blank menu entries in Adobe Reader (not using Lyx myself).

[sdaau (sd-imi)]

PS: should have mentioned I'm using natty 11.04

[SD (ssdtonoy)]

Still not fixed for Ubuntu 11.10

[Thomas Stegbauer (uc-tho4ah-f0)]

still not fixed for Ubuntu 12.04Beta2

[Christopher Mann (lv-christopher-kr)]

This problem is present for me in 12.10 KUBUNTU for Adobe Reader and GNU Cash.
GNU Cash has repeated menu items. In the import menu, there are about 10 submenus all showing "convert".