DMENU(1)

✨ DMENU(1) ✨ — the dynamic menu, aka the manual page for dmenu

okay bestie, sit down, we're learning dmenu 💖 it's a General Commands Manual situation, and honestly? she's iconic. let's go.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

dmenu [-bfiv] [-l lines] [-m monitor] [-p prompt] [-fn font] [-nb color]
[-nf color] [-sb color] [-sf color] [-w windowid]

dmenu_run ...

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so what IS dmenu, you ask? it's a dynamic menu for X, and here's the vibe: it reads a list of newline-separated items from stdin. that's it, that's the whole job. 🫶

then, when the user selects an item and presses Return, their choice is printed to stdout and dmenu terminates. like, gone, done, slay, exit stage left. ✨

and the filter? entering text will narrow the items to those matching the tokens in the input. typey typey, less listy listy. 🔥

dmenu_run is a script used by dwm(1) which lists programs in the user's $PATH and runs the result in their $SHELL. king behavior, no cap. 👑

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

one bullet per flag, we do NOT skip any, periodt.

• -b — dmenu appears at the bottom of the screen. lowkey humble of her.
• -f — dmenu grabs the keyboard before reading stdin if not reading from a tty. this is faster, but will lock up X until stdin reaches end-of-file.

⚠️ bestie, that -f caveat is real real. faster yes, but X gets held hostage until EOF. know what you're doing, fr fr.

• -i — dmenu matches menu items case insensitively. Slay and slay and SLAY are all the same girl. 🎀
• -l lines — dmenu lists items vertically, with the given number of lines.
• -m monitor — dmenu is displayed on the monitor number supplied. monitor numbers start from 0. (yes, zero. programmers, amirite 💀)
• -p prompt — defines the prompt to be displayed to the left of the input field.
• -fn font — defines the font or font set used. ✨ aesthetics ✨
• -nb color — defines the normal background color. #RGB, #RRGGBB, and X color names are supported. so many options, we love a flexible queen 🌈
• -nf color — defines the normal foreground color.
• -sb color — defines the selected background color.
• -sf color — defines the selected foreground color.
• -v — prints version information to stdout, then exits. short and sweet, we stan a brief encounter 💖
• -w windowid — embed into windowid.

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🎀 USAGE 🎀

big news: dmenu is completely controlled by the keyboard. no mouse, no touchscreen, no vibes-based clicking. items are selected using the arrow keys, page up, page down, home, and end.

here's the whole keymap, every single one, don't skip 🫶

• Tab — Copy the selected item to the input field.
• Return — Confirm selection. Prints the selected item to stdout and exits, returning success.
• Ctrl-Return — Confirm selection. Prints the selected item to stdout and continues.
• Shift-Return — Confirm input. Prints the input text to stdout and exits, returning success.
• Escape — Exit without selecting an item, returning failure.
• Ctrl-Left — Move cursor to the start of the current word
• Ctrl-Right — Move cursor to the end of the current word
• C-a — Home
• C-b — Left
• C-c — Escape
• C-d — Delete
• C-e — End
• C-f — Right
• C-g — Escape
• C-h — Backspace
• C-i — Tab
• C-j — Return
• C-J — Shift-Return
• C-k — Delete line right
• C-m — Return
• C-M — Shift-Return
• C-n — Down
• C-p — Up
• C-u — Delete line left
• C-w — Delete word left
• C-y — Paste from primary X selection
• C-Y — Paste from X clipboard
• M-b — Move cursor to the start of the current word
• M-f — Move cursor to the end of the current word
• M-g — Home
• M-G — End
• M-h — Up
• M-j — Page down
• M-k — Page up
• M-l — Down

🌟 that's the whole keyboard lore. memorize it or don't, but it's all here, iykyk.

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• dwm(1)
• stest(1)

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this was dmenu-5.4, living under the DMENU(1) header, and she ate. 💅✨ go forth and dynamically menu. 🦋💖🎀