Ultimate dmenu - one dmenu fork that contains all additional features

Dieter@be · 2011-09-01 13:37:47

Over the past years I've tried to combine patches from various sources to various versions of upstream dmenu.
This has proven to be a pain, as patches conflict with each other (or sometimes apply, but still break functionality) and/or loose compatibility with newer upstream releases.

So therefore, I think somebody/we should write a dmenu with all the options built-in, and try to maintain that.
Myself, I'm a bad C coder and I don't have time anyway, so I hope there are some dmenu hackers out there that can join forces and help out.
Here is my list of features I think should be available:
(I don't care which upstream version you start from, dmenu 3.x or 4.x, as long as the features work)

* horizontal mode (i.e. dmenu as we know it)
* vertical mode, with flag for how many lines long the menu can be
* string matching (dmenu as we know it) and token matching (aka xmms-like and awesomebar-like)
* toggle flag for stable sort: (should work with all matching modes)
* stable: order matched results like they are ordered in the input
* unstable: order by "best match" (match at beginning is better than in the middle)
* case sensitivity toggle
* custom colors
* cursor and "unix shortcuts" (ctrl-e, ctrl-a, ctrl-w, ..)
* traversing results list (going up and down) with arrow up/down and alt+j and alt+k
* multi select
* unicode support
* paste support (from either primary selection with shift-insert and clipboard, maybe with ctrl-V)

and then, some things that I don't find necessary, but others sometimes do:
* xft support
* history support (history support with wrapper script is okay for me, and more flexible anyway)

steve___ · 2011-09-01 18:12:18

Does one of your ideas above support filename tab-completion? If not, I vote for this feature.

http://lists.suckless.org/dwm/0901/7355.html
http://lists.suckless.org/dev/1008/5330.html

Last edited by steve___ (2011-09-01 18:18:21)

Dieter@be · 2011-09-01 18:24:06

steve___ wrote:

Does one of your ideas above support filename tab-completion? If not, I vote for this feature.
http://lists.suckless.org/dwm/0901/7355.html

IMHO:
* for the case where you need to select 1 or more entries from a list of options, tab completion is inferior to token matching
* For "writing your own command with parameters" (like the example you link to), I think this does not belong in dmenu. Dmenu is a tool to efficiently select an entry (or several entries) from a list, what you refer to is the task of a shell, and it can be done with something like bashrun.
Personally, if I wanted to use dmenu for the "open a specific file with a specific program" use case, I would first do a file selector in dmenu and then a program selector in dmenu. It would even be less keystrokes than by using tab completion (worst case only 1 keystroke less, namely the space, you would press enter instead of tab), and you can visually see when you've typed enough so that only 1 option remains, whereas with tab completion that's always a guess and you might press tab a character to early or too late. So not only is it a more pleasant experience, it also minizes your keystrokes.

ninian · 2011-09-01 20:44:05

The main extra features I'd like to mention are:
- positioning of menu on screen: x, y offsets and maybe width of menu too
- retention of the ability to select an item and then customize it by typing extra text
- some simple mouse (yes, mouse!) support (would make my lazier users much happier, I'm afraid)
- Xft support

bernarcher · 2011-09-01 20:58:20

Not really a contribution. This is better suited in a discussion thread.
Moving to Programming & Scripting.

Dieter@be · 2011-09-12 13:17:26

Whoa, the maintainer of dmenu was nice enough to actually create a patch that adds all features in my list to dmenu.
minus multi-select because he argues that's not really needed (you can run dmenu in a loop).
and minus unstable sorting in token matching mode, because he thinks that's pretty hard to do, but I can live with that.

http://lists.suckless.org/dev/att-9306/ … bloat.diff

Arch Linux

#1 2011-09-01 13:37:47

Ultimate dmenu - one dmenu fork that contains all additional features

#2 2011-09-01 18:12:18

Re: Ultimate dmenu - one dmenu fork that contains all additional features

#3 2011-09-01 18:24:06

Re: Ultimate dmenu - one dmenu fork that contains all additional features

#4 2011-09-01 20:44:05

Re: Ultimate dmenu - one dmenu fork that contains all additional features

#5 2011-09-01 20:58:20

Re: Ultimate dmenu - one dmenu fork that contains all additional features

#6 2011-09-12 13:17:26

Re: Ultimate dmenu - one dmenu fork that contains all additional features

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