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Title: Port of the week: pmenu |
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Author: Solène |
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Date: 12 March 2021 |
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Tags: openbsd |
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Description: |
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# Introduction |
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This Port of the week will introduce you to a Pie-menu for X11, |
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available on OpenBSD since 6.9 (not released yet). A pie menu is a |
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circle with items spread in the circle, allowing to open other circle |
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with other items in it. I find it very effective for me because I am |
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more comfortable with information spatially organized (my memory is |
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based on spatialization). I think pmenu was designed for a tablet |
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input device using a pen to trigger pmenu. |
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Pmenu github page |
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# Installation |
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On OpenBSD, a pkg_add pmenu is enough, but on other systems you should |
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be able to compile it out of the box with a C compiler and the X |
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headers. |
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# Configuration |
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This part is a bit tricky because the configuration is not obvious. |
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Pmenu takes its configuration on the standard input and then must be |
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piped to a shell. |
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My configuration file looks like this: |
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```pmenu configuration file |
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#!/bin/sh |
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cat <<ENDOFFILE | pmenu | sh & |
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IMG:/usr/local/share/icons/Adwaita/48x48/legacy/utilities-terminal.png s… |
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IMG:/usr/local/share/icons/Adwaita/48x48/legacy/applets-screenshooter.png … |
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Apps |
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IMG:/usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/gimp.png gimp |
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IMG:/home/solene/dev/pmenu/claws-mail.png claws-mail |
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IMG:/usr/local/share/pixmaps/firefox.png firefox |
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IMG:/usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps/keepassxc.png ke… |
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IMG:/usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/chrome.png chrome |
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IMG:/usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/rclone-browser.png … |
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Games |
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IMG:/home/jeux/slay_the_spire/sts.png cd /home/jeux/slay_the_spi… |
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IMG:/home/jeux/Delver/unjar/a/Delver-Logo.png cd /home/jeux/Delv… |
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IMG:/home/jeux/Dead_Cells/deadcells.png cd /home/jeux/Dead_Cells… |
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IMG:/home/jeux/brutal_doom/Doom-The-Ultimate-1-icon.png cd /home… |
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Volume |
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0% sndioctl output.level=0 |
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10% sndioctl output.level=0.1 |
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20% sndioctl output.level=0.2 |
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30% sndioctl output.level=0.3 |
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40% sndioctl output.level=0.4 |
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ENDOFFILE |
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``` |
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The configuration supports levels, like "Apps" or "Games" in this |
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example, that will allow a second level of shortcuts. A text could be |
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used like in Volume, but you can also use images like in other |
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categories. Every blank appearing in the configuration are tabs. |
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The pmenu itself can be customized by using X attributes, you can learn |
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more about this on the official project page. |
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# Video |
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I made a short video to show how it looks with the configuration shown |
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here. |
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Note that pmenu is entirely browseable with the keyboard by using tab / |
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enter / escape to switch to next / validate / exit. |
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Video demonstrating pmenu in action |
