XMenu is a menu utility for X. XMenu receives a menu specification in stdin, shows a menu for the user to select one of the options, and outputs the option selected to stdout. XMenu can be controlled both via mouse and via keyboard.
In order to generate a menu of applications based on .desktop entries, as specified by XDG, checkout xdg-xmenu by OliverLew.
Check out my other project, xclickroot for an application that can spawn xmenu by right clicking on the root window (i.e. on the desktop).
XMenu understand the following command-line options.
-f: Enable file system navigation.-N name: Specify a resource/instance name for XMenu.-p position: Specify a position to place XMenu.-t window: Bind XMenu to given window.-w: Initiate XMenu as a regular window.-x button: Run XMenu whenever button is pressed on root window.
XMenu understands the following environment variable.
ICONPATH: Colon-separated list of directories to search for images.
XMenu reads menu entries from standard input. Each entry correspond to a line; and lines can be indented to represent submenus. Tab separates the label from the string to be output. An optional image can be inserted on the line to be rendered as the entry's icon.
For example, the following input...
Applications
IMG:./icons/web.png Web Browser firefox
IMG:./icons/gimp.png Image editor gimp
Terminal (xterm) xterm
Terminal (urxvt) urxvt
Terminal (st) st
Shutdown poweroff
Reboot reboot
...generates the following menu:
An example script can be found at ./examples/xmenu.sh.
XMenu can be customized by setting the following X resources before invoking XMenu.
XMenu.activeBackground: Background color for selected entry.XMenu.activeForeground: Text color for selected enty.XMenu.alignment: Text alignment.XMenu.background: Background color.XMenu.borderColor: Border color.XMenu.borderWidth: Border size.XMenu.faceName: Font for drawing text.XMenu.faceSize: Font size.XMenu.foreground: Text color.XMenu.gap: Gap between windows.XMenu.maxItems: Maximum number of items displayed on a menu.XMenu.opacity: Background opacity (from 0.0 to 1.0).XMenu.separatorColor: Separator color.XMenu.shadowThickness: 3D relief size.XMenu.tearOff: Enable menus to be torn off.XMenu.topShadowColor,XMenu.middleShadowColor,XMenu.bottomShadowColor: Colors of the 3D relief.
An example style configurationcanbe found at ./examples/Xresources.
Run make all to build, and make install to install the binary and
the manual into ${PREFIX} (/usr/local).
- XMenu reads something in and prints something out, the UNIX way.
- Submenus (some menu entries can spawn another menu).
- Torn off menus (menus can be managed by the window manager like a regular window).
- Separators (menu entries can be separated by a line).
- Icons (menu entries can be preceded by an icon image).
- X resources support (you don't need to recompile xmenu for configuring it).
- Multi-head (xmenu supports multiple monitors by using Xinerama).
The code and manual are under the MIT/X license.
See ./LICENSE for more information.
- thingmenu for being the base for xmenu's code. However, xmenu evolved enough that it no longer resembles thingmenu at all.
- dmenu for inspiring the stdin-to-stdout interface, and being base for drawing routines and input method code.
XMENU(1) General Commands Manual XMENU(1)
NAME
xmenu - menu utility for X
SYNOPSIS
xmenu [-fw] [-N name] [-p position] [-t window] [-x modifier-button]
[title]
DESCRIPTION
xmenu is a menu for X. It reads a list of newline-separateditems from
standard input; shows a menu for the user to select one of the items; and
writes the selected item into standard output.
The options are as follows:
-f Enable file system navigation. If this flag is set, any menu
item whose output begins with a slash is interpreted as the path
to a directory. Entering this item will open a menu containing
the entries of that directory, so the user can navigate the
contents of the directory with xmenu. When an item is selected,
its absolute path is output prefixed with "file:". A directory's
path can be output by selecting it with the middle mouse button.
-N name
Specifiy the res_name member of the XClassHint(3) property. Ar
name is used to retrieve resources. If not specified, defaults
to the command that xmenu was invoked as (that is, the
basename(3) of its argv[0]).
-p position
Set the position to spawn xmenu. Without this option, xmenu
spawns next to the cursor. Position is a string of the form
GEOMETRY[:MONITOR], where GEOMETRY is a geometry parsed by
XParseGeometry(3). MONITOR is the number of the monitor the
geometry is relative to (counting from 0); it can instead be a
string like "current" or "cursor", specifyingthe monitor where
the cursor is on.
-t window
Make the menu windows transient for the given window. That is,
notify the window manager that the menus are bound to the given
window. This also makes xmenu close when the window is
destroyed.
-w Asks the window manager to draw a border around the menu. This
makes xmenu start torn off.
-x modifier-button
This option requires an argument of the form modifier-button or
button; where modifier is Mod1 to Mod5, or Alt (equivalent to
Mod1), or Super (equivalent to Mod4); and button is the number of
a mouse button. When this option is used, xmenu listens to
button presses on the root window, and shows the menu when the
given button is pressed on the root window or when that button is
pressed together with the given modifier on any window. This
option makes xmenu run continuously; so it should be used when
xmenu is invoked in background on a X11 startup file (like
~/.xinitrc or ~/.xsession). This option cannot be used together
with -w or -t.
If the argument title is given, the title of the menu window is set to
it.
SYNTAX
Each item read from standard input has the following format (bracket
groups optional elements):
[TABS] [IMAGE TABS] LABEL [TABS OUTPUT] NEWLINE
or
[TABS] [:] NEWLINE
The components are as follows:
o The initial tabs indicate the menu hierarchy: items indented with a
tab are placed in a submenu of the preceding item not indented. An
item without initial tabs is a top-level item.
o The image is a string of the form "IMG:/path/to/image.png". It
specifies the path to an image file to be shown as icon at the left
of the entry. If the path does not begin with "/", "./", or "../",
the file is searched on the paths specified in the ICONPATH
environment variable.
o The label is the string that will be shown as an item in the menu.
An item without label or with a single colon (:) as label is
considered a separator and is drawn as a thin line in the menu
separating the item above from the item below. An item whose label
is equal to two apostrophes "''" does not appear on the menu, it's
output provides an alternative output for the previous item when the
user clicks with the middle mouse button.
o The output is the string that will be output after selecting the
item. If an item does not have tabs after the label, its label is
used as its output. If the output is empty or is a colon (:), the
item cannot be selected.
o The newline terminates the item specification.
USAGE
xmenu is controlled by the mouse. Each menu has a list of items that can
be activated by clicking on it with the first, second or third mouse
buttons.
o If there is a right-pointing triangle on the item, it pops up a
submenu when activated.
o If the item is a dash at the top of the menu, it tears the menu off
(that is, the menu becomes "windowed").
o If the item is a continuous horizontal line, it is a separator and
cannot be selected.
o Otherwise, the item outputs some string when activated. Some items
output an "alternative string" when activated with the second mouse
buton (see above at SYNTAX).
but can also be controlled by the keyboard. Items can be selected using
the arrow keys. Tab (with and without Shift), Home, End, Enter and Esc,
and 1-9 keys. Items can also be selected by typing the first several
characters in it.
Down Cycle through the items in the regular direction.
End Selects the last item in the menu.
Esc Go to the menu above in the hierarchy or exit xmenu.
Home Selects the first item in the menu.
Left Go to the menu above in the hierarchy.
Right, Enter
Select the highlighted item.
Shift-Tab
Cycle through the items in the reverse direction. When the type-
to-select feature is active, cycle through matching items
instead.
Tab Cycle through the items in the regular direction. When the type-
to-select feature is active, cycle through matching items
instead.
Up Cycle through the items in the reverse direction.
Additional key bindings can be set at compile time by changing the
config.h file.
RESOURCES
xmenu understands the following X resources. They must be prefixed with
either the "XMenu" class, or the name given with the -N command-line
option, followed by a period.
activeBackground
The backround color of selected items in the menu.
activeForeground
The color of the label text of selected items in the menu.
alignment
If set to "left", "center", or "right", text is aligned to the
left, center, or right of the menu, respectively. By default,
text is aligned to the left.
background
The background color of non-selected items in the menu.
borderColor
The color of the border around the menu.
borderWidth
The size in pixels of the border around the menu.
faceName
Font for drawing text. If the value is prefixed with "xft:"
(case insensitive), then xmenu uses the Xft(3) library for
drawing text; and fallback fonts can be specified by delimiting
the fonts with commas. If the value is prefixed with "x:" or
"x11:" (case insensitive), then xmenu uses the X11 library for
drawing text.
faceSize
The size, in points of the font. This only affects Xft(3) fonts.
foreground
The color of the label text of non-selected items in the menu.
gap The gap, in pixels, between the menus.
maxItems
Maximum number of items to be displayed in a menu. If a menu has
more than this number of items, they will be scrolled with arrow
buttons.
opacity
Background opacity as a floating point number between 0.0 and 1.0
inclusive.
separatorColor
The color of the separator between items in the menu.
shadowThickness
The size in pixels of the Motif-like 3D relief.
tearOff
If set to "True", "On", or "Enable", creates a dashed line on the
top of each non-windowed menu to tear them off into a new
windowed menu.
topShadowColor, middleShadowColor, bottomShadowColor
The color of the top/light, middle and bottom/dark parts of the
Motif-like 3D relief. Setting these resources override
background and separateColor.
ENVIRONMENT
The following environment variables affect the execution of xmenu.
DISPLAY
The display to start xmenu on.
ICONPATH
A colon-separated list of directories used to search for the
location of image files.
EXAMPLES
The following script illustrates the use of xmenu. The output is
redirected to sh(1), creating a command to be run by the shell.
$!/bin/sh
xmenu -f <<EOF | sh &
Applications
IMG:./web.png Web Browser firefox
IMG:./gimp.png Image Editor gimp
Terminal (xterm) xterm
Terminal (urxvt) urxvt
Terminal (st) st
Navigate Home /home/user
Shutdown poweroff
Reboot reboot
EOF
For example, by selecting "Applications", a new menu will appear.
Selecting "Web Browser" in the new menu opens firefox.
The -f option makes it possible to browse the contents of the home
directory by selecting the "Navigate Home" item. This will open a
submenu listing all the entries of the home directory.
SEE ALSO
xclickroot(1), X(7)
UNIX July 9, 2023 UNIX