If you are using Fluxbox sooner or later you will more than likely find the default menu to be something you might want to tweak. Below are some instructions on how to create a simple and effective Fluxbox menu.

Fluxbox menu file can be found from the hidden folder .fluxbox inside your user’s home directory.

The menu file itself is quite simple and might only contain the default menu hook [include] (/etc/X11/fluxbox/fluxbox-menu) ,which actually creates the default entries you will see when right-clicking the desktop.

To make the Fluxbox menu a bit more productive you could do something like below.

#Fluxbox menu file

[begin] (fluxbox)

[exec] (xterm) {xterm}
[exec] (firefox) {firefox}
[exec] (pdf) {evince}
[exec] (pcmanfm) {pcmanfm}
[exec] (libreoffice) {libreoffice}
[exec] (vlc) {vlc}
[exec] (shutter) {shutter}
[separator]
#[include] (/etc/X11/fluxbox/fluxbox-menu)
[workspaces] (Workspaces)
[reconfig] (Reconfigure)
[restart] (Restart)
[exit] (Exit)

[separator]
[config] (Configuration)
[submenu] (Styles) {}
[stylesdir] (/usr/share/fluxbox/styles)
[stylesdir] (~/.fluxbox/styles

[end]

This way you will get nice and neat Fuxbox menu, which only has entries for your most commonly used programs along with the regular commands (restart/exit…).

Feel free to customize the menu entries to your needs.

Edit. Configuration and Styles added as entries (not visible on the screenshot below)

Warning. Do not edit menu file with Libreoffice because it will break the file format. Edit with mousepad, gedit, nano or kate or some other instead.

Notes.

# are comments, which will not be read by Fluxbox. If you remove the # then the entry and its content shall appear again.

[separator] means that a line separating program entries will be added to the Fluxbox menu. Separator is very useful if you will have plenty of entries.

Screenshot showing the menu