WMII9MENU(1)

💅 wmii9menu — the wmii menu program 💅

okay bestie, so you know how you're sitting at your terminal and you want a clickable menu that's cute and wmii-flavored? that's literally this. this is a page from the General Commands Manual, and it's giving main character energy for menu programs, so let's go 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

wmii9menu [-a <address>] [-i <initial>] <item>[:<command>]...
wmii9menu -v

two whole forms, bestie. one takes a whole little parade of arguments, the other is just -v and vibes. neither one is skipping leg day on the flags.

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so wmii9menu is wmii's standard clickable menu program, periodt. it's used extensively by wmii and its related programs to show off clickable menus — and when I say extensively I mean for window titlebars and bar items, like the whole entire UI. it's iconic 🫶

and the name? adorable lore alert 🧚 the name, along with the code, derives from the 9menu program, which in turn derives its name from Plan 9's style of clickable menus. generational talent, no cap.

💅 ARGUMENTS 💅

• -a — the address at which to connect to wmii ✨ (yes, the address. your connect-y destination. slay.)
• -i <initial> — okay so if <initial> is listed among the other items on the command line, it gets selected at startup, and the menu is positioned so that the mouse pointer is centered on said item 🎯 centered. on said item. exactly like that.
• : — this one is literally listed here with no explanation in the original, and honestly? mysterious queen behavior 🙈 iykyk. (the : gets way more lore down in USAGE, keep reading.)

🔥 USAGE 🔥

so you invoke wmii9menu with a list of arguments, and each one gets displayed as a menu item. cute, right? 🍓

now the : of it all: the first : in the item name, and any text following it, is stripped. gone. not invited 💀

the menu opens such that the mouse pointer is centered on the selected item — the way that it just lands perfectly centered on the one you want 😭💖

then it's just mouse vibes:

• if a mouse button is depressed when the menu opens, then releasing it will confirm the selection 🖱️
• otherwise, a mouse press will do the same 🖱️

and when a selection is made, wmii9menu prints the result. here's the crucial part, bestie, don't miss it:

• if the selected item initially contained a :, the text following it is printed
• otherwise, the item text itself is printed

so the bit after the colon is your payload, and the bit before is your display name. it's giving "stage name vs government name" and honestly we're obsessed 👑

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

• $WMII_ADDRESS — the address at which to connect to wmii ✨ (yeah, same idea as -a, but in environment form, lowkey)
• $NAMESPACE — the namespace directory to use if no address is provided 🦋 (no address? it's got you.)

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

• wmii(1)
• wmiir(1)
• wimenu(1)
• [1] http://www.suckless.org/wiki/wmii/tips/9p_tips

go read them, bestie, they're all linked up in the group chat 🫶

that's literally the whole page, ngl. wmii's standard clickable menu program, click it, print the thing after the colon, done. iconic behavior only 💜

with love, from the wmii- fam 💖 — this one's dated Oct, 2009, and it still ate.