xmenu/xmenu.1

.TH PROG 1
.SH NAME
xmenu \- menu utility for X
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B xmenu
.RB [ \-w ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B xmenu
is a menu for X,
it reads a list of newline-separated items from stdin,
shows a menu for the user to select one of the items,
and outputs the item selected to stdout.
.PP
The options are as follows:
.TP
.B -w
Asks the window manager to draw a border around the menus.
Without this options, the menus do not have border drawn by the window manager.
.PP
Each item read from stdin has the following format:
.IP
.EX
ITEM := TABS LABEL TABS COMMAND NEWLINE
.EE
.PP
That means, each item is composed by
tabs, followed by a label, followed by more tabs, followed by a command,
and ended by a newline.
.IP
The initial tabs indicate the menu hierarchy:
items indented with a tab is shown in a submenu of the preceding item not indented.
.IP
The label is the string that will be shown as a item in the menu.
An item without label is considered a separator and is drawn as a thin line in the menu
separating the item above from the item below.
.IP
The command is the string that will be output after selecting the item.
.IP
The newline terminates the item specification.
.SH EXAMPLES
The following is an script exemplifying the use
.BR xmenu .
The output is redirected to xargs to make a command to be run by the shell.
.IP
.EX
#!/bin/sh

cat <<EOF | ./xmenu | xargs sh -c
Applications
	Web Browser	firefox
	Image editor	gimp
Terminal (xterm)	xterm
Terminal (urxvt)	urxvt
Terminal (st)		st

Shutdown			poweroff
Reboot			reboot
EOF
.EE
.PP
For example, by selecting \(lqApplications\(rq, a new menu will appear.
Selecting \(lqWeb Browser\(rq in the new menu will open firefox.
.SH SEE ALSO
.IR dmenu (1),
.IR 9menu (1),
.IR thingmenu (1)