this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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Firefox supposedly now supports the Global Menu on Linux (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago by that_leaflet@lemmy.world to c/kde@lemmy.kde.social
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[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Wow, people actually want that? I hate it with a passion whenever I use OS X, and honestly thought they just kept it for historical reasons and that no one actually likes it that way. Clearly I was wrong based on the reactions here.

I hate it because if you're moving between two apps it adds a click or keystroke to select the app before you can select the menu, and if the app is not at the top of the screen you also have to move the mouse farther.

People who love this, what is the benefit? Is it just to save a few vertical pixels if you have two apps above each other, or is there more to it?

[–] krake@lemmy.kde.social 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The "menu at the top of the screen" is just one possible visualization.

Essentially an application that supports this can "export" its menu so that it can be consumed by another process.

In the case of the "global menu" this is Plasma (applet).

However, the data can also be consumed for example by a window decoration plugin, like this one https://discuss.kde.org/t/decoration-with-locally-integrated-menu/29492

There are likely many more possibilities. Maybe a Kwin effect that shows the menu as a circle of options around the mouse cursor's current position.

[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Okay, that's making more sense. I can see people wanting to stick the menu in the title bar or something like that.

[–] KaKi87@jlai.lu 4 points 2 days ago

The difference with KDE's panel is it supports moving window controls and title, ie. fully get rid of a maximized window's titlebar.

Screenshot

[–] mrvictory1@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

For Firefox I want that because FF's menu is not visible by default and imo FF looks weird with menu enabled because its titlebar becomes thick. Global menu looks natural.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's great when you have a 15 inch 800x600 screen where every window is always maximised. Otherwise, not so much.

[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But even then, is there any benefit? For a maximized window, the menu will be in that general area anyway.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago

No, not really. The original idea was that you could just push the mouse up and get to the menu as it would be at the edge of the screen. It's fine if you have a single program.
Current window managers, especially the Unix ones are specifically designed to let you juggle with dozens of windows. And the screen resolutions we now have make this more comfortable. Maximising every window like people did on a Mac+ no longer makes any sense. So the Apple style of interface makes no sense either.

I think it's like the people who are trying to turn Linux into Windows, a fear of the unfamiliar.

[–] edythecullen@lemmy.world 28 points 3 days ago (1 children)

For those with vision impairments the options you need to set to true in about:config are:

widget.gtk.global-menu.enabled

widget.gtk.global-menu.wayland.enabled

Presumably you would only need the second option if you are using Wayland. I tried it (am using Plasma on Fedora 42) and it worked but I'm not interested in it so I disabled it after I made sure all the menus gave a drop down. YMMV.

[–] daggermoon@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thanks, I love you.

[–] edythecullen@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

<3

[–] Rbon@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 2 days ago

I honestly had given up hope this would ever happen. For global menu enjoyers, this is the holy grail of programs that just refused to play nice.

[–] desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 days ago

nice, sounds useful for creating a touchbar like user interface.

[–] that_leaflet@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Image from a reddit post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1l0yec5/global_menu_now_works_with_firefox/

Seems like you first have to go to about:config and toggle the option shown in the screenshot.

[–] DmMacniel@feddit.org 6 points 3 days ago

Hurrah I hope it's global menu for every desktop environment.

[–] daggermoon@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Fucking finally!

[–] drspod@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What's it supposed to do?

[–] that_leaflet@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago

On MacOS and some desktop environments like Unity and optionally in Plasma, there's a UX design pattern called the "Global Menu". At the top of the screen, as part of the desktop's shell, there's buttons labelled File, Edit, View, etc for you to interact with.

Firefox is seemingly (I haven't tested it myself, not using Plasma) enabled this functionality under Linux. Previously it required a patch to work. But this functionality has always existed on the MacOS version.

[–] daggermoon@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I tested it in Librewolf and Firefox and it works great! This doesn't seem to work in Floorp, though that may be because I am using the community maintained chaotic-aur package.

[–] Rodneyck@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago

It is about time. I use Waterfox because of their global menu support. Lets hope they bring this to Thunderbird next.

[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Didn't work on Floorp

[–] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

iirc floorp is on an LTS release and with be until floorp 12 comes out

[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

Thanks, I didn't know Floorp is based on LTS

[–] tyil@fedi.tyil.nl -4 points 3 days ago (3 children)

@that_leaflet@lemmy.world I don't think "The Global Menu" is a #Linux feature, it sounds more like a very #GNOME specific design.

[–] cnx@awkward.place 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

@tyil@fedi.tyil.nl, I don't think GNOME has ever got global menu, it's more of a Unity and KDE thing. Cc: @that_leaflet@lemmy.world

[–] DmMacniel@feddit.org 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It absolutely did. It was also fully endorsed and utilised for a while in Ubuntu.

[–] that_leaflet@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Ubuntu had their own desktop called Unity that had a global menu. Gnome itself never did, though there were projects like Fildem to bring one to Gnome.

Edit: I was wrong, it used to have one

[–] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 days ago

When Ubuntu used Unity. I think there 3rd party GNOME applets for it but never anything official from the GNOME team.

[–] tyil@fedi.tyil.nl 3 points 3 days ago

@cnx@awkward.place @that_leaflet@lemmy.world Hah, I didn't know KDE had adopted such an anti-feature. Now that you say it, I did know Unity was trying to copy it, but that's quite a while ago.

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 days ago

The screenshot in the OP is KDE Plasma I'm pretty sure.

[–] daggermoon@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

I use it on KDE Plasma, haven't used GNOME in nearly a decade.