Suggestion / discussion: Replace Zorin menu with Mint menu (Cinnamon)

Hi,

I have been using Linux as a primary os for about 20 years now (Opensuse KDE, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora). I have been always choosing stable and hassle free distros and for about a year now I am using Zorin OS on my primary desktop PC. I find Zorin best suited for my needs - it gives traditional desktop, looks fine, is much less buggy than KDE Plasma and has gnome features that Mint lacks - like file indexation. Just a home for me.

What could be better and would increase usability in my opinion:

  1. Menu with a place for favorite applications and places. On mint it is done in the best possible way I think.

why?

I have a setup where I want to see the application name in the panel instead of just an icon. Why? if you work on 2 documents in libre office and have 2 file locations opened in nautilus - it is much easier to quickly jump to desired window by name in the panel. In case favorites are not present in menu - they have to be pinned and it causes to mix opened windows with label and not opened with an icon, which is just messy. I know, I could separate favorites at the beginning of the panel, but then it takes too much space and the favorites in the panel display little badges with msg count witch adds up to the mess.

  1. Menu entries category management, also much better implemented in mint.

The standard Zorin menu editor imho simply does not work. It does not allow for moving applications between categories. It only allows for hiding apps that are let say - put double in 2 categories. What is more - those categories do not make much sense to me: what is the difference between tools, accessories and system tools - its all mixed up. I do not mind sorting it to my liking, but I need a tool to do that quickly. I tried to use alacarte, but it has a lot of problems too- applications rarely are moved using alacarte, very often categories are doubled - for example moving an app to "accessories" with alacarte causes to have 2 set of accessories categories - one, the original, and a new one just with the new app added. Then this app stays in the old location so I need to use the standard menu editor to hide it. I also know, that I can make new entries in desired categories - but then it makes a mess in the app grid view, where applications are doubled as a result of this.

Long story short - please replace the Zorin menu with Cinnamon menu with its menu editor.

Then - to avoid a mess in an application grid you could either just turn it off, or add an extension to sort the applications in the app grid according to app category, so that it would reflect the categories from the menu.

and yes I know there is Arc Menu, but it does not sort out the category mess problem and also hides "activities" button in the panel...

best

Piotr

2 Likes

For this, You can use Zorin appearance Layout 2. there are not only Icons, there are Icons and Names.

In ArcMenu, You can show Favorite Applications, Recently Used, Often Used and Pinned One's.

To turn it off, You can turn on in the ArcMenu Settings ''General'' Tab the Key to open the App Grid to open ArcMenu instead. The Possibility of sorting the Apps in the Grid by Categories exist as a Gnome Extension called App Grid Wizard - GNOME Shell Extensions but this isn't not compatible with the Gnome Version of Zorin 17.

I don't think that this is possible without using the Cinnamon Desktop.

You can activate it in the ArcMenu Settings in the ''General'' Tab: