ICEWM-MENU-FDO(1)

📦
version 4.1.0 · 17 versions
, in arch rolling

🌸 icewm-menu-fdo(1) — the manual, but make it group chat 🌸

okay so bestie, you're reading the User Commands page for icewm-menu-fdo, section 1 of the manual. buckle up, it's actually a slay little utility 💅

✨ NAME ✨

icewm-menu-fdo — menu generator for .desktop files. literally what it says on the tin, no cap 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

icewm-menu-fdo [OPTIONS] [FILENAME]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So icewm-menu-fdo ✨generates✨ a menu for the IceWM window manager out of XDG menu descriptors (you may know them as FreeDesktop.Org .desktop files, iykyk). And the whole vibe is: you include this thing in the icewm-menu(1), and boom — all your system applications just show up in the icewm start menu. iconic behavior honestly 👑

✨ ARGUMENTS ✨

  • [FILENAME] — this optional argument is the location of a .desktop file. when you give it one, icewm-menu-fdo launches the application using the "Exec" line from that desktop file. it's giving "just run the app please" 🫶

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -g, --generic — include the generic name in parentheses in the title of prog entries. cute little extra context 🎀
  • --seps — print a leading and a trailing separator. both. yes. periodt.
  • --sep-before — print a leading separator only.
  • --sep-after — print a trailing separator only.
  • --no-sub-cats — don't nest subcategories in submenus. heads up tho: the correctness of the pigeonholing depends on correct application description, which shall always specify a main category. incorrectly tagged descriptions will be sorted into the "Other" menu 😭 so like… tag your stuff right bestie.
  • -o, --output=FILE — write the output to FILE.
  • -t, --terminal=NAME — use NAME to start a terminal emulator that supports the '-e' option.
  • -s, --no-lone-app — attempt to detect a single application with no other content in lower submenus and move this one to the parent submenu. this also detects menus with just one submenu inside, attempting to move it's application items to the parent menu where possible. lowkey a cleanup queen 🧚
  • -S, --no-lone-hint — decorate app entries moved by the -s option with a hint about the original menu where it would be displayed otherwise. implies -s ⭐
  • -d TIMEOUT, --deadline-apps=TIMEOUT — specifies a certain timeout value in milliseconds, so that the reading of *.desktop files (for applications) is aborted by that time (or soon after). this can help to avoid extended blocking of the caller. also see -D for the subsequent operation ⏳
  • -D TIMEOUT, --deadline-all=TIMEOUT — specifies a total timeout in milliseconds after which the application has to terminate, regardless of whether the final menu construction and decoration reading (applied after *.desktop file reading) was finished or not. this would cause a printing of menu contents which were calculated so far, therefore the timeout should be set a certain time before the actual hard deadline by which the program should be terminated. the output may lack translations and icons 😬 so like, plan ahead.
  • -l LANGUAGE, --lang=LANGUAGE — instead of the environment variable "LANG", use LANGUAGE for the locale. 🌈
  • -L MAX, --limit-max-len=MAX — cut the calculated program titles (after translation and adding hints, see "-C" and "-g") at "MAX" characters, followed by an ellipsis. this can help to restrict the width of the menus in cases where some entry length might get out of hand. ✂️
  • --flat — display apps from all categories in one level with the title containing the category information as prefix.
  • -F sep, --flat-sep=sep — when used with "--flat", the specified character sequence is used as separator between the section titles.
  • -m filter, --match=filter — specifies a filter to show only apps that contain this as substring within their title.
  • -M filter, --imatch=filter — like "--match" but applied with any letter case. might deliver incorrect results with some locale settings 🙈 (she warned us, fr fr)
  • --match-sec — apply the filter from "--match" or "--imatch" to both, apps and section titles.
  • --match-osec — apply the filter from "--match" or "--imatch" to only to section titles.
  • -h, --help — print a brief usage statement to stdout and exit. your emergency exit 💖
  • -V, --version — print the program version to stdout and exit.
  • -C, --copying — print copying permissions to stdout for the program and exit.

✨ USAGE ✨

okay so real talk: this utility is not normally used directly. it's used as the executable in a menuprog entry in a icewm-menu(5). it's a behind-the-scenes main character, not a front-facing one 👑

✨ EXAMPLES ✨

The following line in a icewm-menu(5) file will dynamically generate a comprehensive set of menus for easy access to .desktop files, added in a submenu called "Desktop Apps":

menuprog "Desktop Apps" folder icewm-menu-fdo

It can also be embedded directly into the loading menu like in the following example. There could be a separator line added before or after (or both) in case where the program could generate useful content. 🦋

includeprog icewm-menu-fdo --seps

✨ ENVIRONMENT ✨

  • XDG_DATA_HOME or XDG_DATA_DIRS are considered as suggested by XDG Base Directory Specification. 🍓
  • TERMINAL may define a terminal emulator that supports the '-e' option. The option is ignored if the specified command could not be found and a default is used instead. (so if it's not there, she just picks a default, nbd 💜)

✨ CONFORMING TO ✨

icewm-menu-fdo complies roughly to the XDG .desktop file and menu specification — see "Desktop Entry Specification" (Date: 2020-04-27, Version: Version 1.5) and "Desktop Menu Specification" (Date: 20 August 2016, Version: Version 1.1). "roughly" is doing a lot of work there and I respect it 😌

✨ CAVEATS ✨

⚠️ bestie listen: the icewm-menu-fdo program is only built when the icewm(1) package is configured with the --enable-menus-fdo option and only works with --enable-i18n option. no flags, no program, that's the rule 💀

Integration of XDG menu files is somewhat of varying quality, heavily depending on the correctness of metadata like translations and sections (menu category) hints. so like… it's giving "depends on your data being cute" 😭

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

Base Directory Specification, Desktop Entry Specification, Desktop Menu Specification, icewm(1), icewm-menu(5), icewm-preferences(5), icewm-programs(5).

✨ BUGS ✨

Please report bugs at <https://github.com/ice-wm/icewm/issues>. 🐛 go off, tell them everything.

✨ AUTHOR ✨

Eduard Bloch <mailto:edi@gmx.de>.

See --copying for full copyright notice and copying permissions.

✨ LICENSE ✨

IceWM is licensed under the GNU Library General Public License. See the COPYING file in the distribution or use the --copying flag to display copying permissions. 📜✨

okay that's the whole page, you ate that honestly 🫶 this was icewm 4.1.0, dated 2026-08-06 — manual page number one and everything, ICEWM-MENU-FDO(1). mwah, go read your .desktop files 💋

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