I’m new to Haiku, but old to diverse operating systems. I’m finding my way around for the most part, but I haven’t been able to find out how to change the contents of the deskbar menu (for example, to move the Demos folder into Programs).
Am I missing something obvious?
You can’t delete or move things without remaking a lot of HPKGs from scratch, and that would get blown away at the next update anyway.
But you can add things.
Create the following directories if they don’t already exist (case-sensitive!)
/boot/home/config/non-packaged/data/deskbar/menu/Applications
/boot/home/config/non-packaged/data/deskbar/menu/Demos
/boot/home/config/non-packaged/data/deskbar/menu/Desktop Applets
/boot/home/config/non-packaged/data/deskbar/menu/Preferences
Anything you put in there will show up in your Deskbar menu; programs, scripts, symlinks … Try to keep things sane by not using the same names as the main system menu.
So if having Demos inside Applications makes more sense to you, just put a symlink to to /boot/system/data/deskbar/menu/Demos in /boot/home/config/non-packaged/data/deskbar/menu/Applications. The system Demos won’t go away, though. You’ll end up with both.
You can even invent your own categories. I have a bunch of PDFs on my main system that I need for quick reference. I just store them in /boot/home/config/non-packaged/data/deskbar/menu/Reference and they show up in the Deskbar in their own category besides the four standard ones.
It’s not obvious. 
Have a look at the info box of the Deskbar topic about its “Menu”.
Thank you Michel, that’s a really good thorough reply!
It’s not so much a case of where things make sense, more a case of tidying up … I guess I’ll just put a copy of the symlinks to programs I want to use in their own folder and try to ignore the compulsion to organise things 
I did, but that only mentions adding things, rather than moving or removing the default menu contents, but someone else replied so I’m all sorted now thank you
You can use the packages file blocklist to remove (technically hide) entries from packages without touching the packages themselves. This will persist over updates.
That, too. See Disabling components of packages | Haiku Project to try what nephele suggested.
Nice piece of lateral thinking there! I’ll play around with that a bit.
Thank you, I’ll take a look 
To ease creating of your new menu, there’s also MenuSorter tool available if you added BeSly repository.
I’m already reading the user guide, thank you for this pointer - it looks like just the thing to ease my OCD-like tendencies!
The “Edit in Tracker…” button in Deskbar preferences leads me to a different location, where I can add additional entries. Note that it’s also possible to drop new entries on the top-level directory, quite handy for frequently used applications:
Right. I have symlinked the folder /boot/home/config/settings/Tracker/Go there. That is the “Favorites” folder that’s also available in all file dialogs.
Would be great to bring the folders in menu back.
Unfortunately MenuSorter gives an error saying it can’t be installed (I’m on the Beta 4 release, not the nightly) 
Yes, as a newbie it was confusing that the menu it neither a config file (like so many old window managers in Linux) nor a simple folder structure like Windows used to be.
the menus, largely, can be all edited graphically as noted. here, too, is my deskbar menu. Applications menu grew too big to find things. So, I sort them out into folders with LINKs to the application links. I also just add whole new folders of things. and I find it useful to drop Queries in there as well. everytime I open the query, current stuff is there (Queries are ‘live’ anyway). notice, for example, I keep my People files in different folders where they’re pertinent, and when I archive the folder of an old project, the people go along with it. I mention, because it isn’t obvious that you can drag the top-roght corner icon out as a link where ever you want it.
