Brisk Menu Cleanup

Development Discussion
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#1

Hello!

I am not a noobie to Linux, but I'm not that advanced either, so here goes:

I'd like to know if there are options to configure the Brisk Menu in Ubuntu MATE 17.10. So far the distrubution looks great, but in Contemporary layout, with default Theme and Icons, the Brisk Menu is looking a little ugly. Just my opinion, but the scrollbar for the categories is unnecessary, the search bar really should be at the top, and the System icons (logout, lock, shut down) are taking up an entire row but the buttons remain disproportionately small.

image.png1366Ă—768 229 KB

I think the menu really can be cleaned up a lot.

However, overall, everything else works great! The HUD is perfectly functional, Boutique remains the best software app known to Linux-dom, and the global menu and default layout remains unsurpassed. Even the default GTK Theme is great (I love the green-tinted Ambiance) (although the icons are a little boring). Under the default Tweak layout, it's fast and functional and beautiful.

Is there some way we can configure brisk to satisfy my OCD? Can we perhaps tweak it just a little?

Thanks!

#2

The search bar position at least can be changed with a gsettings setting change. I’m at work now and can’t remember it exactly, but you could look in dconf-editor under com/solus-project/brisk-menu (or run gsettings list-recursively | grep brisk-menu) to find it.

A workaround for the categories scroll bar you could try, if it works for you, is to hide a category (or two). In the past I’ve done this when I’ve found I had a couple categories with just one or two apps. You can use the menu editor menulibre (if I remember right in 17.10) to change apps’ categories and hide categories you don’t need.

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#3

Home now, here’s the gsettings options for the search box:

default search position

gsettings set com.solus-project.brisk-menu search-position 'automatic'

search on bottom

gsettings set com.solus-project.brisk-menu search-position 'bottom'

search on top

gsettings set com.solus-project.brisk-menu search-position 'top'

2 Likes
#4

Thank you!
I’ll try it when I get home, and then send back another screenshot.

#5

The command doesn’t seem to work, strangely, but I did it in dconf editor. Now the search bar is on top.

#6

Sorry, braino on my part: the get lists the value, but you need set to change it. I’ve updated it above for future reference.

#7

Oh Lol. That’s good.

For anyone reading this in the future, I suspect that you can have the search bar permanently on top by adding elcste’s commands as custom startup applications.

Personally, some events have just come up and I can no longer use Ubuntu MATE on my primary laptop :frowning:

#8

Protip: Once it’s set, they won’t change (unless there is a configuration tool or Brisk itself decides to change them) :slight_smile:

#9

I agree with all these points. Is there a way now to remove/change the text on the main menu button??

#10

That would be in dconf editor as well. Under com, solus-project, brisk menu, and then look for a parameter like menu-text or something like that.

#11

You can change the label text by editing the value label-text in dconf-editor or using gsettings. For example, to make your menu say “OMG! MATE” run

gsettings set com.solus-project.brisk-menu label-text 'OMG! MATE'
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