xmenu/xmenu.1

.TH XMENU 1
.SH NAME
xmenu \- menu utility for X
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B xmenu
.RB [ \-iw ]
.RI [ title ]
.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 -i
Disable icons.
.B xmenu
allocates a space at the left side of the menu for the icons;
if there is no icon, then this space will be blank.
Setting the
.B -i
option removes this space, making the menu narrower.
.TP
.B -w
Asks the window manager to draw a border around the menus.
This option may be buggy in some window managers,
specially tiled ones that do not respect window hints.
.PP
Each item read from stdin has the following format:
.IP
.EX
ITEM := [TABS] [[IMAGE TABS] LABEL [TABS OUTPUT]] NEWLINE
.EE
.PP
That means that each item is composed by
tabs, followed by an optional image specification, followed by tabs
followed by a label, followed by more tabs, followed by an output,
and ended by a newline.  Brackets group optional elements.
.IP
The initial tabs indicate the menu hierarchy:
items indented with a tab is shown in a submenu of the preceding item not indented.
An item without initial tabs is a top-level item.
.IP
The image is a string of the form "IMG:/path/to/image.png".
It specifies a image to be shown as icon at the left of the entry.
.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 output is the string that will be output after selecting the item.
If an item does not have an output, its label is used as its output.
.IP
The newline terminates the item specification.
.PP
If the argument
.I title
is given, the title of the menu window is set to it.
.SH USAGE
.B xmenu
is controlled by the mouse,
but can also be controlled by the keyboard.
Items can be selected using the arrow keys,
Tab (with and without Shift),
Enter and Esc.
.TP
.BR Down ", " Tab
Cycle through the items in the regular direction.
.TP
.BR Up ", " Shift-Tab
Cycle through the items in the reverse direction.
.TP
.BR Right ", " Enter
Select the highlighted item.
.TP
.B Left
Go to the menu above.
.TP
.B Esc
Go to the menu above or exit xmenu.
.SH RESOURCES
.B
xmenu
understands the following X resources.
.TP
.B xmenu.font
The font in which the labels should be drawn.
.TP
.B xmenu.background
The background color of non-selected items in the menu.
.TP
.B xmenu.foreground
The color of the label text of non-selected items in the menu.
.TP
.B xmenu.selbackground
The background color of selected items in the menu.
.TP
.B xmenu.selforeground
The color of the label text of selected items in the menu.
.TP
.B xmenu.border
The color of the border around the menu.
.TP
.B xmenu.separator
The color of the separator between items in the menu.
.TP
.B xmenu.gap
The gap, in pixels, between the menus.
.TP
.B xmenu.width
The minimum width, in pixels, of the items in the menu.
.TP
.B xmenu.height
The size in pixels of the height of a single menu item.
.TP
.B xmenu.borderWidth
The size in pixels of the border around the menu.
.TP
.B xmenu.separatorWidth
The size in pixels of the item separator.

.SH EXAMPLES
The following script illustrates the use of
.BR xmenu .
The output is redirected to
.IR sh (1),
creating a command to be run by the shell.
.IP
.EX
#!/bin/sh

cat <<EOF | xmenu | sh &
Applications
	IMG:./web.png	Web Browser	firefox
	IMG:./gimp.png	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 opens firefox.
.SH SEE ALSO
.IR dmenu (1),
.IR 9menu (1),
.IR thingmenu (1)