At last: different menu layouts are here!

Chances are you know that I’m a big fan of ArcMenu, the “traditional” app menu extension for the GNOME Shell extension.

So when a bunch of you mailed in to to tell me there was new release (appreciated, btw!) I just had to check it out and give it a bit of a write-up here.

And what a release it is!

ArcMenu v33 Features

ArcMenu 33 (labelled as v34 on EGO) is a pretty substantial update packed full of welcome improvements — so much so that the app menu’s developers bill this update as a milestone release.

So what’s new?

Arc Menu now lets you select from a number of different menu layouts, including those more akin to Windows as well as those more akin to launchers found on DEs, such as Unity dash, Linux Mint’s Cinnamon menu, and the Solus OS Brisk Menu.

ArcMenu layout

Brisk layout

Slingshot layout

GNOME layout

Mint layout

Windows layout

Unity layout

XFCE layout

There’s a built-in ‘theme preset colour creator’ which, as the name might imply, allows you theme the colours of various elements within the app menu based on your personal tastes — oh, and save them.

A related addition based on both of these features is the ability to export and import ArcMenu “themes” (made up of design layout, preset colours, and other preferences).

Dash to Panel users will appreciate being able to drag and drop applications from Arc Menu (including search results) on to Dash to Panel to instantly add them as a launcher.

Other changes:

Improved Cairo Context Performance

GNOME 3.34 Support

Option to disable the ‘power’ button

Increase the size of their application icons

Trigger hotkey action on key-release and press

Edit Pinned apps (e.g., change icon, edit name)

New Arc Menu Logo

ArcMenu is free, open-source software designed for use with GNOME 3.28 and above. Source code is available on Gitlab, where packages for manual installation are also hosted.

ArcMenu is available to install from the GNOME Extensions website:

Install Arc Menu from extensions.gnome.org

Thanks to everyone who tipped me!