editing the gnome menu

[Anthony DiSante <orders nodivisions com>]

Is there a way to edit the main gnome menu without running nautilus and 
going to applications:/// ?  After taking about half an hour to start up 
(which is normal for nautilus), it allowed me to add a folder to the menu, 
and then I created a launcher inside that folder, but the launcher would not 
show up at all in the nautilus window.  I created about 5 of them, but they 
wouldn't show up.  So I killed gnome-panel, and when it came back alive, my 
new folder was there, and so were the shortcuts.  But then I go back to the 
nautilus window, right-click to make another folder, and there's no 
right-click menu.  Then I notice that the CPU is peaked at 100% by nautilus. 
 I kill it and rerun it, and as soon as I go to applications:/// it's 
peaking the CPU again.  Now it lets me create a folder but not rename it 
from "untitled folder."

Every time I've ever tried to use nautilus for anything (over the course of 
about 2 years and multiple installations on different systems) it's been 
entirely problematic.  I've been fine for a long time because I use Rox 
instead, but when I come across something ridiculous like having to use 
nautilus to edit the gnome menu, I'm stuck.

So first of all, aren't the contents of the gnome menu stored in files 
somewhere, that I can edit?  Things are so simple when the "everything is a 
file" unix mentality is applied; I feel like I'm stuck in MS Windows when 
I'm forced to use an application to edit prefs/configuration settings, 
rather than just editing text files to do it.

If there's no way that doesn't involve using nautilus, does anyone have any 
idea why nautilus needs 100% of my CPU perpetually to access applications:/// ?

-Anthony