One can use the GNOME Developer Kit [1], but then may need to do some extra work to
get various themes installed.  Fedora or Ubuntu will be easier in that regard. 
Student needs to compile Gtk+ with the patch.

[1] http://live.gnome.org/GnomeDeveloperKit

Hi!

I would like to claim this issue, I sent you an E-mail with some details.

If you didnt recieve it for some reason, I can be contacted through:
zoasterboy@msn.com 

Just a quick comment: Menu accelerators do not work at all.

zoasterboy: as long nobody has added an explicit "I claim this task" comment here the
task will remain unclaimed and open.

Wow, this is an awesome task! This is one of the things that has really been annoying me ever since I switched to 
Linux.

My knowledge on how gtk runs apps is somewhat limited, but isn't it designed to run multiple copies of a 
program whereas os x is designed to run one copy of an app?

Anyway, good luck zoasterboy!

I claim this task

zoasterboy, welcome on board!

Thanks for the info/encouragement people!

I'll get working on this right away.

wiki page at ubuntu:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/global_menu

Project site here:
http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/

What is the status of the testing/report? 

Would someone help me to test this?( if it compiles and works)

http://gnome2-globalmenu.googlecode.com/svn/branches/_0.3/

both the gtk2-aqd patch and the applet is rewritten. Still not ready for release, but
I want to see if things are fine enough to go on.

In this version, the menubars and the applet use a protocol(based on XClientMessage)
to communicate with each other, instead of using wnck's events.

It is an effort to make the patch less like a hacking by removing dependence of
higher level objects(eg, a toplevel GtkWindow) in GtkMenuBar.

Introducing a protocol allow us to retreive and allocate the menubar's size from
within the applet.

These are supposed to be functional:
 * menu accelerators still be functional (e.g. alt+e) 
 * the menu respond when the cursor is above the menu item but at the
very top of the screen

Works for me :)

I have not set menu transparency, but the rest is definitely working :)

System:
Linux wolverine 2.6.23-gentoo-r4 #1 SMP Sun Dec 16 17:31:58 EET 2007 x86_64 Intel(R)
Core(TM)2 CPU T5600 @ 1.83GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

x11-libs/gtk+-2.12.1-r2
gnome-base/gnome-panel-2.20.2

I can provide ebuilds here, if anyone interested in them.
I have 2 of them:
- gnome-extra/gnome2-globalmenu-applet - svn trunk;
- x11-libs/gtk+ - slightly modified 2.12.1-r2 ebuild with patch from svn.

Hi, thank you for your comments, sstasyuk

Would you come to maintain the ebuild package and put it to the project website? If
you want, send me an email (my account @gmail.com will be fine) to tell me.

If bugs are seeked and fixed, the 0.3 svn branch will changes and we'll need to
repackage it for different platforms.

I am maintaining the Fedora packages, 
pierre.slamich is working on the ubuntu packages.
If you can provide a guide and some packages for Gentoo, we'll have packages for 3
major distributions! 
It will be a very helpful platform to do further work, and also a plus for our effort
to enter gtk releases.

------------------------
I am also glad to announce here:

#Release Notes

Gnome2-globalmenu 0.3 is ready. Completely new patch/code for gtkmenubar.
Reconstructed menu server.

New features:

    * + Stupid Menu Bar Scrolling
    * - No Window icon
    * + Skinning(partially working)
    * + New Protocol: Connectionless, Asynchronous(Should update the Specification)
    * + True Server/Client Architecture
    * + Stablility
    * + Menu server auto detection
    * + Auto Guessing whether the menubar is a global one instead of hard coded
window names. 

http://gnome2-globalmenu.googlecode.com/svn/branches/0.3/ 

Would somebody update the test cases regarding to the project's roadmap?

http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/wiki/DevelopmentHome

The importance of testing the behavior of various gtk programs increases, since it
will lead us to the list of the programs that we will patch in version 0.5, where our
design become very robust and we can begin to give up GtkMenuBar but turn to patching
applications to work with GtkGlobalMenuBar.

It seems that globalmenu doesn't work with SWT. At least it doesn't work with eclipse.

Does not work with eclipse means that menubar is not shown neither in
globalmenu-applet nor in eclipse window.

Swing menu was not caught (tested with freemind), it resides on its common place. But
I do not know exactly how it draws its menus.

SWT works in the latest svn, After I fixed a bug with TuxGuitar(another SWT
application, bug much smaller than Eclipse)

Let me install a freehand(if I can find) to test. anyway, I think SWING don't use GTK
at all so we can't really deal with it.

Oh, I see. But seems trunk should be merged with 0.3. I'll recheck it tomorrow and
move  discussion to bugtracker if issue would still exists.

Sorry there have been no updates, I've been busy, I'll continue working on this as 
soon as possible.

No Problem :-)
First some stati:
- Thunderbird works (at least at ubuntu 7.10 and your svn 324.
- Gimp troubles: in dialog-boxes menu disappears. seems like gimp uses even for
dialog-boxes real windows or that - i haven't looked at the code so far.
- java swing doesn't use GTK at all

and for your information KDE has the option for a global menu (at least last time I
cared for KDE - what was ages before :-) ), maybe talking to KDE-guys would be
interesting, and getting together freedesktop.org convinced :)


thanks for the good work!

Hi lars, 
what does 'in dialog-boxes menu' means?
would you submit a screenshot so that I can find out what really happens and locate
the problems?

What he meant by 'in dialog-boxes':

I've noticed this also. When using Gimp as you probably already know, more than one
window is opened rather than a single window (one for the toolbox, various pictures,
etc). When opening a new image with another image already open, sometimes the menu
options disappear for the new image until you click away and back again. 

I'll include a screen shot when I finish the report.

Dear zoasterboy,

gnome2-globalmenu 0.3 svn323 is ready and includes new features as well as bug fixes.

New features:

    * + Users can custom the appearance.
    * + New deploying script reduces difficulty for building from scratch. (Hopefully
will also reduce packaging difficulty.) 

Downloading from svn is prefered.
svn checkout http://gnome2-globalmenu.googlecode.com/tags/0.3_323 gnome2-globalmenu 

A installation guide for building the svn is at
http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/wiki/BuildFromScratch

I strongly suggest you try to build from the source and test this new svn version.

but,
RPM download is also available at
http://gnome2-globalmenu.googlecode.com/files/gtk2-aqd-0.3.svn323.2.12.5-1.fc8.i386.rpm
http://gnome2-globalmenu.googlecode.com/files/gnome2-globalmenu-applet-0.3.323-4.fc8.i386.rpm

Packages for other platform will come later when we have time to make it.

can someone enlighten me about the status of this task? lattimerk?
the deadline for any tasks is february 3rd. is this still "claimed" or is it somehow
"resolved"? lattimerk: if so, feel free to correct its status.

andre: I think that this task needs restarting and the information provided as asked,
testing of the current *latest* SVN/CVS rather than ubuntu packaged version, against
a recent version of GNOME, e.g. Garnome 2.21.90?

Once data has been collected about the active, current status of the project we can
then submit comment back to the original authors with the aim to include it as an
option in future releases.

Is anybody interested in testing gnome-globalmenu-0.4?

rainwoodman, isn't it simply the trunk?

Yes the trunk changed from 0.3 to 0.4. It was a big change.

FYI: the active trunk has been updated to 0.7 branch.
http://gnome2-globalmenu.googlecode.com/svn/trunk

It is not hackish anymore and has many more features listed here:
http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/wiki/QuickTour

Interesting to see and quite impressive. Thanks for keeping us updated here about the
progress. :)