WMENU(1)

📦
version 0.2.0 · 10 versions
, in ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 WMENU — like, the manual bestie 💖

okay so this is the manual page for wmenu (section 1, General Commands Manual, in case you were wondering) and honestly? she's a whole vibe. dynamic menu for Wayland, main character energy, no cap. sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, let's get into it.

✨ NAME ✨

wmenu — dynamic menu for Wayland 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

wmenu [-biPv]
  [-f font]
  [-l lines]
  [-o output]
  [-p prompt]
  [-N color] [-n color]
  [-M color] [-m color]
  [-S color] [-s color]

wmenu-run ...

yeah she takes a lot of little flags, but they're all cute, I promise 💅

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so wmenu is a dynamic menu for Wayland, and the way it works is so satisfying: it reads a list of newline-separated items from stdin 🌈. when you pick an item and hit Return, your choice gets printed to stdout and wmenu dips out (terminates). and if you start typing text? it narrows the items down to the ones matching the tokens in your input — like a search bar but make it iconic ✨

then there's wmenu-run, which is a special invocation of wmenu — she lists programs in the user's $PATH and runs the result. it's giving launcher, it's giving personal assistant 🫶

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -b — wmenu appears at the bottom of the screen. bottom text. periodt.
  • -i — wmenu matches menu items case insensitively 🥰 (so you don't have to worry about caps, she's chill like that)
  • -P — wmenu will not directly display the keyboard input, instead it replaces it with asterisks. secret girl behaviour 🙈✨
  • -v — prints version information to stdout, then exits 👋
  • -f font — defines the font used. for more info, see https://docs.gtk.org/Pango/type_func.FontDescription.from_string.html — yeah she's fancy, Pango font descriptions, iykyk 🎀
  • -l lines — wmenu lists items vertically, with the given number of lines. so like, tell her how tall she is 📏
  • -o output — wmenu is displayed on the output with the given name. multi-monitor girlies, this one's for you 🖥️
  • -p prompt — defines the prompt to be displayed to the left of the input field 🌸
  • -N RRGGBB[AA] — defines the normal background color. (that [AA] is optional alpha, bestie, transparency!! 💜)
  • -n RRGGBB[AA] — defines the normal foreground color
  • -M RRGGBB[AA] — defines the prompt background color
  • -m RRGGBB[AA] — defines the prompt foreground color
  • -S RRGGBB[AA] — defines the selection background color 🔥
  • -s RRGGBB[AA] — defines the selection foreground color

✨ USAGE ✨

wmenu is completely controlled by the keyboard ⌨️. items are selected using the arrow keys, page up, page down, home, and end. no mouse, no touchscreen, just vibes and keys.

  • Tab — Copy the selected item to the input field. 📋
  • Return — Confirm selection. Prints the selected item to stdout and exits, returning success. slay ✅
  • Ctrl+Return — Confirm selection. Prints the selected item to stdout and continues. (she stays 💅)
  • Shift+Return — Confirm input. Prints the input text to stdout and exits, returning success.
  • Escape — Exit without selecting an item, returning failure. sometimes you just gotta leave the party 🚪💨
  • 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-[ — 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 Wayland 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
ngl bestie, that emacs-style keybinding block is a LOT, but she memorized it so you don't have to. screenshot it. put it in your notes app. you got this 💖

and that's the whole thing, babes 🫶 this page is dated 2025-08-25 and it belongs to WMENU(1), the General Commands Manual — drop a 🎀 in the group chat if you actually read the entire keybinding list, obsessed with you fr fr 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from