No menu-items being created... (Mint 17 with Mate 1.8)

[omelette]

When I install Wine 1.6.2 stable, in Mint's Applications menu, a Wine entry along with its associated entries are correctly created. If I then install a Windows program, all of its menu entries are written, not to Applications->Wine->Programs location, but into the Applications->Others folder. Worse, they are dumped there without their associated folders, so that it looks a complete mess after you have installed a few Windows programs. This also applies to the latest Beta as well (1.7.20) with the added complication that on a Wine-less system, it also doesn't create the Applications->Wine->Programs menu entries.

How can I get Wine to create the menu entries automatically in the correct place?

[dimesio]

If by "associated entries" you mean links for things like winecfg, regedit, uninstall, etc., those are not part of plain Wine; they are something some distros add to their packages.

As for other entries going to the wrong place, assuming you are using the Ubuntu packages, the problem could be due to differences between Mint and Ubuntu. The way to test that would be to build plain Wine and see where it puts the entries for the installed apps. If they still end up in the wrong place, file a bug here; otherwise, report the problem with the packaged version to the package maintainer.

If you just want to avoid the problem, you can disable winemenubuilder in your .bashrc and create menu entries manually wherever you want them.

on a Wine-less system, it also doesn't create the Applications->Wine->Programs menu entries.

Why would you expect any entries for Wine on a system where it's not installed?

[omelette]

If by "associated entries" you mean links for things like winecfg, regedit, uninstall, etc., those are not part of plain Wine; they are something some distros add to their packages.

Hi. Yes, that's what I meant. Aha, that's interesting to know - always wondered why some installations had them, others didn't.

As for other entries going to the wrong place, assuming you are using the Ubuntu packages, the problem could be due to differences between Mint and Ubuntu. The way to test that would be to build plain Wine and see where it puts the entries for the installed apps. If they still end up in the wrong place, file a bug here; otherwise, report the problem with the packaged version to the package maintainer.

If you just want to avoid the problem, you can disable winemenubuilder in your .bashrc and create menu entries manually wherever you want them.

I've been down the build-route. With Mint-17, after installing all of the recommended build-dependencies, on running './configure' only 'libhal-dev' (if memory serves!) was not found. After a successful build, like I already mentioned, all installed program menu-items are dumped into the 'Others' folder. However, Wine was creating program menu-items in the ~/.local/share/applications/wine/programs/ menu-tree - they just aren't being mirrored in the Applications menu.

I know the how/where of creating the entries manually. I also know that Wine used to do it automatically & properly in past versions, so it would be nice if I could get it working again!

Out of curiosity, today I spent a few hours building Wine 1.6.2 on the long-EOL'ed Ubuntu 10.04 - still my main OS believe it or not, and the reason I'm trying to get the Mint 17 setup running! After building & installing, I found that there was no 'winecfg' etc. menu-entries created (as you explain above) and if I installed the torrent-client uTorrent, it would create a single menu-entry in the Applications menu, specifically in the Wine folder itself, but when I installed any program that created a folder with it's menu-entries (like most programs do) no entries appear in the Applications menu, in either the 'Wine' or the 'Others' directory paths. But like I mentioned with Mint 17 above, Wine has created entries at '/.local/share/applications/wine/programs/'. So everything is a bit inconsistent!

on a Wine-less system, it also doesn't create the Applications->Wine->Programs menu entries.

Why would you expect any entries for Wine on a system where it's not installed?

Haha, I suppose it could be read like that! I meant that on uninstalling Wine, I had also deleted the hidden '.wine' folder as well - just in case on reinstalling Wine, that would have had any bearing on things.

[dimesio]

However, Wine was creating program menu-items in the ~/.local/share/applications/wine/programs/ menu-tree - they just aren't being mirrored in the Applications menu.

Did you ever manually delete any of Wine's menu items through your menu editor? Doing that can prevent them from reappearing. http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-34c8b5d ... a1aa8fea48

I had also deleted the hidden '.wine' folder as well - just in case on reinstalling Wine, that would have had any bearing on things.

Did you also delete all the desktop links, menu entries, etc. that Wine created? If not, try that. http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-cf92baf ... 05caaf9c0a

If it's neither of those things, what you describe sounds like it may be a bug in the Mint menu. You should file a bug with Mint.

[omelette]

However, Wine was creating program menu-items in the ~/.local/share/applications/wine/programs/ menu-tree - they just aren't being mirrored in the Applications menu.

Did you ever manually delete any of Wine's menu items through your menu editor? Doing that can prevent them from reappearing. http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-34c8b5d ... a1aa8fea48

I had also deleted the hidden '.wine' folder as well - just in case on reinstalling Wine, that would have had any bearing on things.

Did you also delete all the desktop links, menu entries, etc. that Wine created? If not, try that. http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-cf92baf ... 05caaf9c0a

If it's neither of those things, what you describe sounds like it may be a bug in the Mint menu. You should file a bug with Mint.

Thanks, interesting info about the 'applications.menu' ('Mate-applications.menu' for me). After spending a least an hour playing with it, the saying "it's a riddle wrapped up in an enigma" seems apt! First off, it has no 'wine' menu entry. If you create one, it is ignored, even if you then manually create a Applications directory via 'Edit Menus'. It seems fixated on that 'Others' folder.

One discovery I did make was that on uninstalling a program, it's menu entries are automatically deleted (from the Others folder) - something I've never seen happen with Wine before, and I've been using it since version 1.2. Whether this is down to Wine or Mate I don't know.

One final question if I may - why do the Wine developers not include 'Wine Uninstall' by default? Time was it was bloody awful to use, now though it seems quite good, even useful.

Edit: forgot to mention. I did try deleting the entries in ~/.config/menus - had no effect, after installation, program-entries are still found in the Others folder, and there is no 'Wine' folder created in the Applications menu when Wine is first installed.

[dimesio]

One final question if I may - why do the Wine developers not include 'Wine Uninstall' by default?

It is included by default. There's just no menu item for it, same as there's no menu item for winecfg, regedit, and other builtin programs in plain Wine.

As to whether plain Wine should include those menu items, IMO, they are of limited value: menu links can only point to one wineprefix. People with multiple wineprefixes would need a menu link for each of those items for each wineprefix, and for someone with more than a couple of wineprefixes, it would quickly become a big mess.

[omelette]

That's odd. With my Mint-17 build of Wine 1.7.20, when I run 'wine uninstall' from the terminal, I get "wine: cannot find L"C:\\windows\\system32\\uninstall.exe"". Sure enough, on checking the system32 folder, it's not there. I presumed therefore that it wasn't included by default. Another oddity...

[dimesio]

It's uninstaller.exe.

[omelette]

Oops, so it is, that works nicely! Thanks for the heads-up.