I’m on Ubuntu 18.04.1. Global menus aren’t getting enough space to get displayed, I guess. My monitor resolution is 720p.
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Here is my applet setting
That is a known issue - it is because there are three hidden boxes “Start” “Center” “End” - Even though you haven’t got any applets in the center - the center is still taking some space.
A code change is required in budgie-desktop itself to recognise that if there are no applets in the “Center” then that center box should not actually be created. That will allow the global menu to flow from left all the way to the right side.
If anyone is interested to work on that, we can ensure that “fix” is backported to 18.04/18.10
Funnily enough - if you move the global menu to the center, the “Start” and “End” boxes will be squeezed and the global menu will be displayed correctly.
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Example here Expand option in global menu applet settings with centered global-menu.
It suits very well this way with pixel-saver 
No doubt it is a real pity that this global menu cannot be used to the left. As a Solomonic solution it’s time to put it in the center and reorganize the applets to the sides, so that the panel looks a little better.
Anyway, that Global Menu + Pixel Saver is a great help for small screens (laptop 14" and 15"). I love Ubuntu Budgie. The Gnome team removed the extension from version 3.0, they are on the wrong track.
Well global menu and pixel saver are very great pieces of budgie applets !
Unfortunately they might « break » in the future as Gnome wants menus to totally disappear in favor of CSD-headerbar-all-icons-thing.
I don’t know how these upstream changes will impact on other environment making use of gtk* though.
In the other hand : no top panel + left panel as a dock + csd may nicely fit on « smaller » screen ?
Gnome and his design team is very misdirected. The Windows 8 Metro interface was a failure just for trying to change obvious and very functional designs. A main bar with task changer and application menus in letters are designs that will always be practical and universal on computers with screens larger than 14".
The stubbornness of the GNOME team will put more work on the application developers, most of whom will not support them. The discussions are very cold and apathetic. Applications made for KDE, Windows or Mac will always have traditional CSD, even native ones like the famous Evolution, Synaptic or GIMP. The reason why GTK3 could never get rid of GTK2 is that minimalist paradigm on big screens is not functional.
For the new GNOME CSD to work, there has to be unanimous support of the applications and that’s not going to be close. To do it without implementation and socialization would be the ruin for them and the massive abandonment of users to other implementations of GTK+ or KDE as it is currently being seen. In practice we have a desktop circus: some applications with thick bar and others with title bar and menu bar in letters thanks to the Gnome team.
The Budgie desktop is the Gnome Shell that always should have been and wasn’t. Budgie is the light that understands the user and reads us correctly. So far I know them and I feel very comfortable.
The Gnome team would save both approaches. Minimalistic and traditional, with a menu. That would be what I need. It activates in Gnome, to switch to tasks is more convenient than Alt + Tab. After that, in Windows and Cinnamon, I poked the mouse into the upper left corner, for a very long time. I liked the idea Headerbar. But … I also need the Global Menu. Ubuntu Badgie in this regard, what I need!
But … A variant with the withdrawal of the Global Menu in the central zone - I do not like it and leads to irritation of internal harmony.
What are the options / ways to adjust, debug the output of the Global Menu - in the left zone of the panel ??? (using KDE is not an option, much more work with a file, so that Ubuntu Badgie in this issue would be ideal if the problem with the output in the left zone was solved)
It is actually a budgie-desktop issue.
There are three boxes in the panel - left, center and right. You can’t see the boxes since they don’t have a frame - but they are there. What needs to happen is when a box does not contain any applets, that box should be made invisible (set the box.visibility to False). When that happens the left box can then expand all the way to the right-hand side.
Unfortunately an applet such as the global menu does not have access to the panel itself. Hence the fix must be done within budgie-desktop.
Happy for anyone to supply a suggested fix to the budgie-desktop code.
And what do the budgie-desktop developers themselves say about resolving this problem?
They do not support 3rd party applets (quite understandably in many ways) such as global menu and hence do not regard it as an upstream issue to be resolved.
Hmm … the situation is clear - do what you want, it is not our headache.
So, I do not consider what solutions, or accept the “these are not the droids you are looking for” in the conditions of Windows and Mac, or edit the code yourself.
I will inform you in the course of events, ask if something is unclear. I’ll go into the code, but I don’t promise that it will happen today.
Is anyone willing to test out a proposed fix for this that I have done?
If yes - please let me know which version of UB you are using and I’ll create a test PPA for the test. TIA
I can’t believe you are asking on Dec 30th. I can’t believe I’m saying yes. PPA for 19.10 please, I’ll test out the proposed Global Menu fix on Firefox, et al. and get back to you with results within a few days - thanks FF
Ok,
our test PPA is budgie desktop v10.5.1 and is similar to the version that will be in 20.04.
So the stress here is very extensive testing please
My suggestion is to create another user account so that you can mess around without touching your main account.
Testing will need to include panels moving around, applets moving around within the panels, applets being removed from start/center/end positions, applets being added to start/center/end positions, multiple panels and any other of the panel related functionality in budgie-desktop-settings
To install and test:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntubudgie-dev/eoan-test
sudo apt upgrade
Logout and login
At the end of tesing to revert back to 19.10’s version of budgie-desktop:
sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntubudgie-dev/eoan-test
logout and login.
Libreoffice has a huge global menu - so worth testing with that.
Gotcha, Firefox. Libreoffice, Something else.
Shift it all around/mess with the app settings on purpose.
Hah! it works just like this long time mac user expects: Loads up fine when pushed to the left hand side (Menu/global Menu – time indicator in the centre) When it’s placed in the centre position, it still centres, but it pushes the time indicator aside, so that everything in the middle of the top bar is centred. I’ve also tried it on the left hand side, just after the app indicator but before the wifi icon, and it opens fine. The time indicator stays put, but the global menu opens to full menu (Firefox) when I open Libreoffice writer, the global menu butts up directly against the time indicator. Calc does loose the last two items on the Global Menu, confirmed when I shifted the global menu back to the far left. They just completely don’t exist.
BUT it works with Libreoffice, both Writer and Calc. Firefox works fine, exactly as expected. The top bar keeps it’s slight transparency. Is this a win? I feel like it could be, with the caveat you have to allow some space for the Global Menu to expand/unfold on the top bar.
putting the global menu on a left side bar just creates a weirdly spaced bar, I imagine it would be the same if it wore on the right hand side. I don’t know why I imagined it would have run sideways 
The extra panel I added to the bottom (shifted the plank to the left) worked as expected. There didn’t seem to be multiple positions to place along the secondary bottom bar, I magine because I don’t have any other items installed?.. The compact mode is interesting! It creates a pull down submenu you can drill into, much like the Menu on the top bar. I like the bold application name, you should consider implementing that as standard.
Running LO Writer and Firefox side by side flips the Global Menu between the two without any hiccups.
I also tested it, LO seems to work fine, but i never had the issue in the first place (screen big enough?)
However on my other laptop with 19.10 I spun this up. Works like a charm!
FYI, I purged the PPA after testing, but I guess I didn’t log out? The top menus within programs seemed to disappear! Once I logged-out and back-in they returned (inkscape/gimp/krita were my tests) thank goodness