i3menu

i3menu is a bashscript that enhances and launches a fork of dmenu in cool i3 specific ways. It can for instance make a menu overlay the current windows title-bar or the whole window. If the current workspace is i3fyra, it can overlay the menu ontop of a specific i3fyra container (A,B,C,D) or family (AC,BD).

i3menu used to be included in i3ass but was made independent to ease the dependency burden on i3ass (the fork of dmenu). xdotool is an optional dependency for mouse support (--layout mouse).

installation

AUR

Arch Linux users can install the i3menu AUR package, which has a hard dependency on dmenu-bud AUR package, meaning it will automatically install the needed dmenu fork and resolve conflicts of other dmenu installations.

manual installation

Build dependencies:

• GNU/make
• gawk

Runtime dependencies:

• dmenu-bud
• gawk
• bash
• i3ass (i3wm) (optional --layout)
• xdotool (optional --mouse)

$ git clone https://github.com/budlabs/i3menu.git
$ cd i3menu
$ make
# make install

it is possible to change the shbang of the bashscript with SHBANG make macro: make SHBANG='#!/usr/bin/env bash'

options

-b, --bottom                     | shorthand for dmenu -b 
--dryrun                         | do not execute any i3-msg commands  
-f, --filter         FILTER      | sets initial inputbox text
--height             INT         | overrides the calculated height of the menu.  
-h, --help                       | print help and exit  
-a, --layout         LAYOUT      | mouse, window, titlebar, tab, A, B, C, D, AC, BD 
-d, --list-directory DIRECTORY   | content of DIRECTORY will be list  
-o, --orientation    ORIENTATION | vertical|horizontal  
-p, --prompt         PROMPT      | Sets the prompt of the menu to PROMPT 
--sensitive                      | case sensitivity on  
-t, --theme          THEME       | change appearance of the menu  
--top                TOP         | put TOP at the top of the list  
--verbose                        | print additional information to STDERR 
-v, --version                    | print version info and exit  
-w, --width          INT         | changes the width of the menu  
--xoffset            INT         | offsets the menu on the x axis  
-x, --xpos           INT         | absolute X position of the menu  
--yoffset            INT         | offsets the menu on the y axis   
-y, --ypos           INT         | absolute Y position of the menu  

-a, --layout LAYOUT

• mouse
  At the mouse position (requires xdotool)

• window
  The currently active window.

• titlebar
  The titlebar of the currently active window.

• tab
  The tab (or titlebar if it isn't tabbed) of the currently active window.

• A,B,C or D
  The i3fyra container of the same name if it is visible. If target container isn't visible the menu will be displayed at the default location.

• AC , BD Menu will cover visible containers in the given family.

titlebar and tab LAYOUT will be displayed as a single line (dmenu like) menu, and the other LAYOUTS will be of vertical (combobox) layout with the prompt and entrybox above the list.

The position of the menu can be further manipulated by using --xpos,--ypos,--width,--height,--orientation,--include.

$ echo "list" | i3menu --prompt "select: " --layout window --xpos -50 --ypos 30
The command above would create a menu with the same size and position as the current window, but place it 50px to the left of the window, and 30px below the lower of the window.

-d, --list-directory DIRECTORY

This option will list filenames in DIRECORY. The selected item will be returned with the full path.

-o, --orientation ORIENTATION

This forces the layout of the menu to be either vertical or horizontal. If --layout is set to window, the layout will always be vertical.

-t, --theme THEME

default theme (~/.config/i3menu/default) will be created and used if not specified.

foreground = #83e736
background = #000000
foreground_selected = #FFFFFF
background_selected = #0000c6
font = monospace

--top TOP

If TOP is set, the input stream (LIST) will get matched against TOP. Lines in LIST with an exact MATCH of those in TOP will get moved to the TOP of LIST before the menu is created.

$ printf '%s\n' one two three four | i3menu --top "$(printf '%s\n' two four)"

will result in a list looking like this:
two four one three

-w, --width INT

If the argument to --width ends with a % character the width will be that many percentages of the screenwidth. Without % absolute width in pixels will be set.

--xoffset INT

If --layout is set to window and --xpos is set to -50, the menu will be placed 50 pixels to the left of the active window but have the same dimensions as the window.