Dmenu Hacking Thread

melek · 2013-02-24 20:56:50

If anybody is interested, I made a fork of dmenu.

Its in AUR https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/dmenu2/

It contains i guess all possible paches (x,y, width,height, xft, etc.) and have some extended finctionality.

Now you can:
- select screen on which dmenu appears while in the multi-screen configuration
- change dmenu opacity
- change dmenu window class and name
- dim screen by selected opacity and color while running dmenu

Last edited by melek (2013-02-26 13:32:22)

demize · 2013-03-01 05:04:19

There's already been a few window switching scripts posted, but my version feels a bit more clean to me, although it'd very likely have to be modified for every DE that isn't xfce so for it to be portable it would have to either be made messier or modified to read a config file. xD

Here goes (It depends on wmctrl):

#!/bin/sh

if [ "${@:-1}" == "1" ]
then
  win=`wmctrl -l | colrm 1 19 | sed '/xfce4-panel/d' | dmenu -i`
else
  win=`wmctrl -l | colrm 1 19 | sed '/xfce4-panel/d' | dmenu ${@:-1}`
fi

if [ "$win" == "" ]
then
  exit
elif [ "$win" == "Desktop" ]
then
  wmctrl -k on
else
  wmctrl -a $win
fi

Basically what it does is: First it checks if it has been run with any arguments, and if it has, dmenu will be run with those, if it hasn't, dmenu will just run with -i (case-insensitive matching). Then it removes xfce4-panel from the list of windows returned by `wmctrl` (D'oh). The `colrm`'s removes everything but the window names from the list.

It then checks if nothing was selected and if so exits (Otherwise you get an error from dmenu if ran from the commandline (Another D'oh)), if you selected Desktop it runs `wmctrl -k on` which turns on the window managers 'show the desktop' feauture, and otherwise just raises and gives focus to the selected window.

I apologize for any rambling, unclarity and uncorrectness of my use of the English language. It's 06:00 and I haven't been able to get any sleep, but I hope that atleast parts of my script might be usefull to someone somehow.

chickenPie4tea · 2013-03-01 13:52:12

skanky wrote:

Here's an updated version of my edit script:
#!/bin/sh
#
# dedit: Use dmenu to open and edit a file from a given list.

# Global variables:
FILES=${1:-"$HOME/.config/dmenu/edit-list"}

if [ -f $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/dmenu/dmenurc ]; then
  . $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/dmenu/dmenurc
else
  DMENU='dmenu -i -l 8'
fi

# Show list of options
choice=$(awk '{print $1}' $FILES | $DMENU -p "File to edit:")

if [[ $choice ]]; then
    # use eval as get vim error is use awk's system
    eval $(awk '/'$choice'/ && NF == 2 {printf("'$EDITOR' %s",$2); exit}
                /'$choice'/ && NF == 3 {printf("%s %s",$3,$2); exit}' $FILES)
fi
It will assume standard editor for two entry items, and if there is a third entry it will assume that that is a different editor to use. There may be better ways to do that, but after trying a few out, this works best with how I will use it. The label file being consistently the first two items on the line. That way if I want to add other parameters, I won't need to insert them to existing entries.
Sudo is used by using sudoedit as the editor name, see example below.
Here's a couple of example files:
$ cat ~/.config/dmenu/edit-list
bashrc  ~/.bashrc
bash_profile ~/.bash_profile
functions ~/.config/bash/bash_functions
xinitrc ~/.xinitrc
Xdefaults ~/.Xdefaults
vimrc ~/.config/vim/vimrc
rc.conf /etc/rc.conf sudoedit 
editlist $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/dmenu/edit-list
acclist $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/dmenu/edit-list-acc

$ $cat ~/.config/dmenu/edit-list-acc 
Forecast ~/data/Accounting/Forecast11-12.xls gnumeric
Ledgers ~/data/Accounting/Ledgers.xls gnumeric
PPAC ~/data/Accounting/AC20112012.xls gnumeric
Using the second file I wrapped dedit in a function:
acedit () { dedit "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/dmenu/edit-list-acc" & }
It should be fairly trivial to convert it to a generic command launcher. I haven't done that yet as I'm not sure how much I'll use it.
I'll keep it in mind though.
Nothing overly sophisticated, but does a job.

Anyone else tried this as it's not working for me so i tried running it in terminal to see any error messages and got
17: /home/boo/bin/dedit: [[: not found

so line 17 is the problem for me

skanky · 2013-03-01 14:00:38

[[ is a bash built-in, what shell are you using.

I *think* in this case you should just be able to swap in [ instead.
Sorry, I should have flagged it wasn't portable (few of my scripts are, so I tend to forget it's worth mentioning).

chickenPie4tea · 2013-03-01 14:16:26

skanky wrote:

[[ is a bash built-in, what shell are you using.
I *think* in this case you should just be able to swap in [ instead.
Sorry, I should have flagged it wasn't portable (few of my scripts are, so I tend to forget it's worth mentioning).

hmm now I am getting
1: eval: /home/boo/.bashrc: Permission denied

skanky · 2013-03-01 14:47:04

Looks like your EDITOR env variable is not set.

chickenPie4tea · 2013-03-01 14:52:36

@skanky yes your right, thank a lot - its working now and nice to have

skanky · 2013-03-01 14:53:08

chickenPie4tea wrote:

@skanky yes your right, thank a lot - its working now and nice to have

Cool, thanks.

skanky · 2013-03-06 22:45:00

For what it's worth, I'm moving my edit and umount scirpts (above) to use slmenu. The main change is that I'm no longer referencing an rc file and just dropped "slmenu -i -l 5 -p 'prompt here'" in place of $DMENU. What's nice is that the menu appears at the cursor (can be configured to be top or bottom) which for these scripts is, I think, more friendly. There are situations where dmenu makes more sense though, so it's horses for courses.

jv2112 · 2013-03-07 10:23:08

Dmenu can be configured to run at the bottom ....

 dmenu_run -fn -misc-fixed-*-*-*-*-20-200-*-*-*-*-*-* -l '5' -i -b -nf 'yellow' -sb 'blue' -nb 'black'

Last edited by jv2112 (2013-03-07 10:23:24)

skanky · 2013-03-07 10:37:18

Yes, I know, thanks.

slmenu is a console app that defaults to where the cursor is, but can be configured to run at top or bottom. Thus the script can be run under X or in the console (though I've not yet tested the latter, so caveats applied). I just think that if everything's happening in a particular terminal, then having the menu also in that terminal is "nice".

As an additionaly bit of info. the list isn't cleared by slmenu if you escape out (which is a non-zero exit), so you may need to add a "clear" command on error.

Last edited by skanky (2013-03-07 10:37:40)

jakobcreutzfeldt · 2013-03-07 11:35:08

A quick hack to present power options (suspend, poweroff, etc). I'm sure this can be done in a prettier way. I suck at shell scripting.

#!/bin/sh
FONT="DejaVu Sans Mono:pixelsize=11:antialias=true:rgba=rgb"
BGCOL="#3f3f3f"
FGCOL="#dcdccc"
SELBGCOL="#5f7f5f"
SELFGCOL="#dcdccc"

COMMANDS="
suspend\n
poweroff\n
reboot\n
hibernate\n
hybrid-sleep\n
halt\n
lock\n
"

command=$(echo -e $COMMANDS | \
    dmenu -p "Power:" -fn "$FONT" -nb $BGCOL -nf $FGCOL -sb $SELBGCOL -sf $SELFGCOL)
[ "$command" = "" ] && exit 1
systemctl $command && exit 0

iknelav · 2013-03-13 04:29:08

Not my creation, but I found this one liner somewhere within the depths of the internet and played around with it for a while. It's a window switcher for dmenu;

wmctrl -l | cut -d' ' -f 1,5- | dmenu -f -i -b -p "Switch to" -nb black -nf white -sf white -fn Ubuntu-8 | cut -d' ' -f 1 | xargs wmctrl -iR

If you're using awesome window manager, you might want to add ...

client.add_signal("focus", function(c) c:raise() end)

... under the awful.util.spawn function for your shortcut or it doesn't work for some reason, still using awesome 3.4, I think in 3.5 it's connect_signal instead of add_signal.

tlvince · 2013-03-15 19:00:23

Army wrote:

On the suckless mailing list this problem was solved in a VERY nice way!
This script depends on lsw, which is also a suckless project and available in the AUR.

Thanks for that. Here's a link back to the original source. Also note, it doesn't depend on lsw (although an alternative mentioned earlier in the thread did).

I simplified it a little and added it to dmenu-tools as dmenu_raise, although later re-wrote it using wmctrl and added an Xmonad RunOrRaise equivalent: (more accurately named) raise_or_run.

tlvince · 2013-03-15 19:19:41

Trilby wrote:

Army wrote:
Slowly but surely it's getting hard to find a not already used shortcut for all those fine dmenu tools!
You may have to make a dmenu tool to list and select which dmenu tool you wish to use.

I do the very same in dmenu_menu

miek · 2013-03-20 22:00:56

Here's a python script I wrote to generate an alternate menu on i3, based on dmenu. I was looking for a small project to keep me busy and missed having a categorized application menu on i3 (I use the default dmenu launcher which just lists every executable in my PATH).

So the script generates a sqlite3 database at ~/.pymenu.db which contains all programs with a *.desktop file in /usr/share/applications and keeps track of their name, category(ies) and path. The script then handles the generation of the main menu and submenus and launches dmenu with the appropriate input/options.

I still haven't tested it extensively but I'm quite happy with it. Also it uses dmenu2 for the 'width' option.

Here's how it looks (nothing fancy, and this is a brand new install on virtualbox):

Here's the script: http://pastebin.com/XxkeSs0e

Hope you like it (I do)!

Last edited by miek (2013-03-21 01:29:19)

miek · 2013-03-20 22:07:48

Bug fixed (v1.2).

[Edit] Now v1.4, I've corrected 1~2 bugs which prevented some applications from being categorized correctly and added an option which by defaut limits the applications to the main applications defined by the menu entry specification (for *.desktop files). Much cleaner once you start installing a few applications (as mentioned I've done this script on a new VM on virtualbox). I don't want to spam the forum so please tell me or PM me if anyone's interested in the latest version of the script (it's not on Github).

Last edited by miek (2013-03-21 19:30:41)

Army · 2013-03-29 09:22:49

dmenu-when

I quickly hacked a script for the cli calendar application when, because I wanted a replacement for gcalcli.

The code isn't the nicest, a lot of repetitions etc, but it works.

#!/bin/bash

if [ -f $HOME/.dmenurc ]
then
	source $HOME/.dmenurc
else
	DMENU='dmenu -i'
fi

TERMINAL=st

if [ -e ~/.when/preferences ]
then
	calendar="$(head -n 1 ~/.when/preferences | awk '{print $3}' )"
else
	$TERMINAL -e when
	exit
fi

options="--noheader --wrap=0 --noampm" # the first two are important, please don't remove them

choice=$(echo -e "show\nadd\nspecial\nedit" | $DMENU -p 'choose an action:')
case $choice in
	show)
		wmy=$(echo -e "week\nmonth\nyear" | $DMENU -p 'show events of coming')
		case $wmy in
			week)
				when $options w | $DMENU -p 'events of coming week:'
				;;
			month)
				when $options m | $DMENU -p 'events of coming month:'
				;;
			year)
				when $options y | $DMENU -p 'events of coming year'
				;;
		esac
		;;
	add)
		year=$(date +%Y | $DMENU -p 'year:')
		if [ ! "$year" ];then exit;fi
		month=$(echo -e "Jan\nFeb\nMar\nApr\nMay\nJun\nJul\nAug\nSep\nOct\nNov\nDec" | $DMENU -p 'month:')
		if [ ! "$month" ];then exit;fi
		case $month in
			Jan|Mar|May|Jul|Aug|Oct|Dec)
				day=$(echo {01..31} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
				;;
			Feb)
				if [ $[$year % 400] -eq "0" ]
				then
					day=$(echo {01..29} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
				elif [ $[$year % 4] -eq 0 ]
				then
					if [ $[$year % 100] -ne 0 ]
					then
						day=$(echo {01..29} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
					else
						day=$(echo {01..28} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
					fi
				else day=$(echo {01..28} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
				fi
				;;
			Apr|Jun|Sep|Nov)
				day=$(echo {01..30} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
				;;
		esac
		if [ ! "$day" ];then exit;fi
		time=$(date +%H:%M | $DMENU -p 'time (can be left blank):')
		event=$(xsel -o | $DMENU -p 'event:')
		if [ ! "$event" ];then exit;fi
		echo "$year $month $day , $time $event" >> $calendar
		;;
	special)
		specialcase=$(echo -e "birthday\nyearly\nmonthly\nweekly\ncustom" | $DMENU -p 'choose a special case:')
		case $specialcase in
			birthday)
				who="$(xsel -o | $DMENU -p 'who is the birthday kid?')"
				if [ ! "$who" ];then exit;fi
				year=$(xsel -o | $DMENU -p "what year was $who born?")
				if [ ! "$year" ];then exit;fi
				month=$(echo -e "Jan\nFeb\nMar\nApr\nMay\nJun\nJul\nAug\nSep\nOct\nNov\nDec" | $DMENU -p "what month was $who born?")
				if [ ! "$month" ];then exit;fi
				case $month in
					Jan|Mar|May|Jul|Aug|Oct|Dec)
						day=$(echo {01..31} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
						;;
					Feb)
						if [ $[$year % 400] -eq "0" ]
						then
							day=$(echo {01..29} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
						elif [ $[$year % 4] -eq 0 ]
						then
							if [ $[$year % 100] -ne 0 ]
							then
								day=$(echo {01..29} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
							else
								day=$(echo {01..28} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
							fi
						else day=$(echo {01..28} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
						fi
						;;
					Apr|Jun|Sep|Nov)
						day=$(echo {01..30} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
						;;
				esac
				echo "${year}* $month $day , BIRTHDAY: ${who}s \a. birthday (\y)" >> $calendar
				;;
			yearly)
				month=$(echo -e "Jan\nFeb\nMar\nApr\nMay\nJun\nJul\nAug\nSep\nOct\nNov\nDec" | $DMENU -p 'month:')
				if [ ! "$month" ];then exit;fi
				case $month in
					Jan|Mar|May|Jul|Aug|Oct|Dec)
						day=$(echo {01..31} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
						;;
					Feb)
						if [ $[$year % 400] -eq "0" ]
						then
							day=$(echo {01..29} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
						elif [ $[$year % 4] -eq 0 ]
						then
							if [ $[$year % 100] -ne 0 ]
							then
								day=$(echo {01..29} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
							else
								day=$(echo {01..28} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
							fi
						else day=$(echo {01..28} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
						fi
						;;
					Apr|Jun|Sep|Nov)
						day=$(echo {01..30} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'month:')
						;;
				esac
				if [ ! "$day" ];then exit;fi
				time=$(date +%H:%M | $DMENU -p 'time (can be left blank):')
				event=$(xsel -o | $DMENU -p 'event:')
				if [ ! "$event" ];then exit;fi
				echo "m=$month & d=$day , $time $event" >> $calendar
				;;
			monthly)
				day=$(echo {01..31} | sed 's/\ /\n/g' | $DMENU -p 'day of the month:')
				if [ ! "$day" ];then exit;fi
				time=$(date +%H:%M | $DMENU -p 'time (can be left blank):')
				event=$(xsel -o | $DMENU -p 'event:')
				if [ ! "$event" ];then exit;fi
				echo "d=$day , $time $event" >> $calendar
				;;
			weekly)
				day=$(echo -e "Mon\nTue\nWed\nThu\nFri\nSat\nSun" | $DMENU -p 'weekday:')
				if [ ! "$day" ];then exit;fi
				time=$(date +%H:%M | $DMENU -p 'time (can be left blank):')
				event=$(xsel -o | $DMENU -p 'event:')
				if [ ! "$event" ];then exit;fi
				echo "w=$day , $time $event" >> $calendar
				;;
			custom)
				fancycustominput="$(xsel -o | $DMENU -p 'fancy custom input:')"
				if [ ! "$fancycustominput" ];then exit;fi
				echo "$fancycustominput" >> $calendar
		esac
		;;
	edit)
		$TERMINAL -e when e
esac

or http://codepad.org/2FPAoKRr
(edited, fixed a little mistake)

Please at least adjust the TERMINAL variable. I use st, so that's my default.

I also show the events in conky, a simple

${scroll 15 5 ${execi 300 when --noheader --wrap=0 --noampm w}}

is enough (I use a one-liner conky, so I need to scroll such content).
And I show them on every boot, so when I turn on the computer in the moring, I know what's gonna happen in the coming week. Just put

notify-send "$(when --noheader --wrap=0 --noampm w)"

in your ~/.xinitrc to get this.

Last edited by Army (2013-03-29 14:26:08)

mbab · 2013-04-12 17:26:14

youtube_dmenu

I wrote this script for myself to watch youtube channels but maybe somebody can use it.

more info in code.

#!/bin/bash

if [ -f $HOME/.dmenurc ]; then
    . $HOME/.dmenurc
else
    DMENU='dmenu -i'
fi

# number of entries to display
MAX=5

# simple www get from perl libwww can be replaced by curl wget or whatever
GETBIN=GET

# html parser I use query for nodejs  - 'npm install query'
# can be replaced with rquery - 'gem install ruby-query' - but this gives some trouble with new lines
# or script uses pyquery
QUERYBIN=query

# command to deal with youtube video url
VIDEOBIN="ytcmd -e @mplayer"

# can be run with channel name
CHANNEL=$1
# and number of entries to retrive
NUM=${2:-$MAX}

# or channel is taken from dmenu feed with file
if [[ -z $CHANNEL ]]
then
    # DATAFILE can hold Your entries
    # added automatically, delete it manually
    # number added after channel name is used as number of entries
    DATADIR="${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-${HOME}/.config}/dmenu"
    DATAFILE="${DATADIR}/youtube_channels_list"
    if [[ ! -e "$DATADIR" ]]
    then
        mkdir -p "$DATADIR"
    fi
    X=($(cat $DATAFILE | $DMENU -l 5))
    if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
        exit
    fi
    if ! grep -qx "$X" "${DATAFILE}"
    then
        echo "$X" >> "${DATAFILE}"
    fi
    CHANNEL=${X[0]}
    NUM=${X[1]:-$MAX}
fi

rss=`$GETBIN "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/videos?max-results=$NUM&orderby=published&author=$CHANNEL"`

IFS=$'\n'
entries=($(echo $rss | $QUERYBIN entry))
unset IFS

menu=""
declare -A tab
for v in "${entries[@]}"
do
    title=$(echo $v | $QUERYBIN title text)
    menu="${menu}${title}\n"
    tab[$title]=$(echo $v | $QUERYBIN link attr href )
done

choice=$(echo -e $menu | $DMENU -l $NUM)

if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
   exit
fi

$VIDEOBIN ${tab[$choice]}

Enjoy or blame!

Marcin Babnis

EDIT. Changed location of channels file and short early exit code (removed ifs)

Last edited by mbab (2013-04-13 11:43:34)

Gullible Jones · 2013-08-22 19:09:19

#!/bin/sh
find ${1} -iname *.desktop | xargs egrep -h "^Exec=" $i \
    | sed 's/^Exec=//' | sed 's/\s%[fFuU]//' \
    | dmenu -i | sh -

invoked as 'deskmenu.sh /path/to/desktop/files'.

It's a little ugly but it works. Took a few tries to get one that ran fast enough; this one should be instant, but if anyone can think of a good way to eliminate the extra sh invocation, that'd be cool.

jasonwryan · 2013-08-22 20:17:01

Merging with the dmenu hacking thread...

ninian · 2013-08-22 22:26:31

Gullible Jones wrote:

It's a little ugly but it works. Took a few tries to get one that ran fast enough; this one should be instant, but if anyone can think of a good way to eliminate the extra sh invocation, that'd be cool.

Thank you, I like that and it's pretty fast too.

skanky · 2013-08-23 10:31:25

Gullible Jones wrote:

#!/bin/sh
find ${1} -iname *.desktop | xargs egrep -h "^Exec=" $i \
    | sed 's/^Exec=//' | sed 's/\s%[fFuU]//' \
    | dmenu -i | sh -
invoked as 'deskmenu.sh /path/to/desktop/files'.
It's a little ugly but it works. Took a few tries to get one that ran fast enough; this one should be instant, but if anyone can think of a good way to eliminate the extra sh invocation, that'd be cool.

Don't know about the sh, but you can remove one sed call as you can have multiple commands in a script. You can have new lines inside the quotes, or use a semi colon on one line.

Trilby · 2013-08-23 10:53:34

And (e)grep + sed = awk. So one awk could take the place of the egrep and the two seds.

madprops · 2013-08-29 20:57:40

I was wondering how it would be possible to show some information as soon as opening dmenu, without entering any text. Like battery state, date, cpu, mem etc. I think that would be nice.

Arch Linux

#151 2013-02-24 20:56:50

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#152 2013-03-01 05:04:19

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#153 2013-03-01 13:52:12

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#154 2013-03-01 14:00:38

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#155 2013-03-01 14:16:26

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#156 2013-03-01 14:47:04

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#157 2013-03-01 14:52:36

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#158 2013-03-01 14:53:08

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#159 2013-03-06 22:45:00

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#160 2013-03-07 10:23:08

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#161 2013-03-07 10:37:18

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#162 2013-03-07 11:35:08

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#163 2013-03-13 04:29:08

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#164 2013-03-15 19:00:23

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#165 2013-03-15 19:19:41

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#166 2013-03-20 22:00:56

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#167 2013-03-20 22:07:48

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#168 2013-03-29 09:22:49

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#169 2013-04-12 17:26:14

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#170 2013-08-22 19:09:19

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#171 2013-08-22 20:17:01

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#172 2013-08-22 22:26:31

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#173 2013-08-23 10:31:25

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#174 2013-08-23 10:53:34

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

#175 2013-08-29 20:57:40

Re: Dmenu Hacking Thread

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