dmenu-configs

What is dmenu?

dmenu is a dynamic menu for X, originally designed for dwm, now working for major of Window/Tiling Managers out there. It manages large numbers of user-defined menu items efficiently. It is a very powerful tool that allows you to pipe information into it. This makes dmenu a perfect utility to incorporate into your scripting.

What is dmenu-flexipatch?

Similar to dwm-flexipatch, the dmenu-flexipatch project has a unique take on patching. It uses preprocessor directives to decide whether or not to include a patch during build time. Patching with dmenu-flexipatch is much easier than the traditional patching methods, especially when using many patches (which I do!).

Patches can be added/removed using the patches.def.h file. For example to include the `alpha` patch then you would only need to flip this setting from 0 to 1:

#define ALPHA_PATCH 1

After you have decided on the patches that work for you, then run: sudo make install

The patches that I used were:

• dmenu-alpha – adds transparency as an option.
• dmenu-border – adds border around dmenu window
• dmenu-center – centers dmenu in the middle of screen (-c)
• dmenu-fuzzyhighlight – fuzzy matches gets highlighted
• dmenu-fuzzymatch – adds support for fuzzy-matching
• dmenu-grid – adds a flag (-g) to specify the number of grid columns
• dmenu-lineheight – adds a flag (-h) to set the minimum height of dmenu lines
• dmenu-morecolor – creates a color option for use the entries adjacent to the selection
• dmenu-mousesupport – basic mouse support
• dmenu-numbers – Displays number of matched and total items in top right corner
• dmenu-xyw – Allows setting X/Y coordinates as well as W (width).
• dmenu-password – Enables custom input as Password.

Due to the tedious nature of applying so many patches, I now use dmenu-flexipatch. After all, no need to reinvent the wheel!

Mouse functionality

Mouse actions supported:

• Left-mouse click:
  • On prompt and input field: clear input text and selection.
  • In horizontal and vertical mode on item: select and output item (same as pressing enter).
  • In horizontal mode on arrows: change items to show left or right.
• Ctrl-left-mouse click: multisel modifier.
• Right-mouse click: close.
• Middle-mouse click:
  • Paste current selection.
  • While holding shift: paste primary selection.
• Scroll up:
  • In horizontal mode: same as left-clicking on left arrow.
  • In vertical mode: show items above.
• Scroll down:
  • In horizontal mode: same as left-clicking on right arrow.
  • In vertical mode: show items below.

Available flags

• [-bw borderwidth]
• [-c] for centering
• [-P for hidden input]
• [-Pcb for hidden clipboard injection]
• [-fn font]
• [-g columns]
• [-l lines]
• [-m monitor]
• [-nb color]
• [-nf color]
• [-nhb color]
• [-nhf color]
• [-p prompt]
• [-sb color]
• [-sf color]
• [-shb color]
• [-shf color]
• [-w windowid]
• [-X xoffset]
• [-Y yoffset]
• [-W width]

An example: ls | dmenu -c -bw 2 -l 20 -g 2

This launches default dmenu with -c (centered), -bw (border width), -l (number of vertical lines) and -g (number of grid columns).

Installing on Arch Linux

All you need to do is to download the PKGBUILD from this repository. Then run the following command:

makepkg -cf= && sudo pacman -U *.pkg.tar.zst=

Installing on other Linux distro’s

git clone https://github.com/MGSousa/dmenu-configs && cd dmenu-configs
sudo make clean install