Awesome
bemenu
Dynamic menu library and client program inspired by dmenu
Releases
Releases are signed with 29317348D687B86B and published on GitHub.
Building
# Build everything
make
# To build only certain features, pass the targets which you are interested into
#
# You can also use the following meta-targets for common features:
# - clients (bemenu, bemenu-run)
# - x11
# - wayland
# - curses
#
# For example this would build the bemenu and bemenu-run binaries and the x11 backend:
make clients x11
# To install the built features, simply run:
make install
# NOTE: You may get errors during install when not building all the features.
# These errors are free to ignore if `Install OK!` is printed.
# By default that will install to /usr/local, but you can change this with PREFIX
make install PREFIX=/usr
# Other usual variables are available for modifying such as DESTDIR, bindir, libdir and mandir
# Note that if you want a custom PREFIX or libdir, you should pass those during build as well,
# since they will be used compile-time to figure out where to load backends from!
# HTML API documentation (requires doxygen installed):
make doxygen
# To test from source, you have to point the LD_LIBRARY_PATH and BEMENU_RENDERERS variables:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. BEMENU_RENDERERS=. ./bemenu-run
OSX
Homebrew
# Make sure you have GNU Make and pkg-config installed
brew install make pkg-config
# You may need to setup your pkg-config to point to the brew version of the libraries
# For example to build curses backend, you'd do:
PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/local/opt/ncurses/lib/pkgconfig" sh build-osx.sh curses
# Other than that, follow the normal build steps, but use `build-osx.sh` instead of make
Nix
There is default.nix provided in this repo, you can install bemenu with it by running
nix-env -i -f default.nix
This installs only the curses backend.
Dependencies
- C compiler
- scdoc to generate manpage
Backend-specific
All dependencies below are searched with pkg-config
Backend | Dependencies |
---|---|
curses | ncursesw |
x11 | x11, xinerama, cairo, pango, pangocairo |
Wayland | wayland-client, wayland-protocols, cairo, pango, pangocairo, xkbcommon |
Currently, pasting from clipboard is done at runtime with wl-paste
and xclip
, attempted in that order.
Installing the dependencies
Ubuntu 20.04
sudo apt install scdoc wayland-protocols libcairo-dev libpango1.0-dev libxkbcommon-dev libwayland-dev
Environment variables
Variable | Description | Value |
---|---|---|
BEMENU_OPTS | Options for bemenu, bemenu-run from env | Any cli argument |
BEMENU_BACKEND | Force backend by name | x11, wayland, curses |
BEMENU_RENDERER | Force backend by loading a .so file | Path to the .so file |
BEMENU_RENDERERS | Override the backend search path | Path to a directory |
BEMENU_SCALE | Override the rendering scale factor | Float value |
About Wayland support
Wayland is only supported by compositors that implement the wlr-layer-shell protocol. Typically wlroots-based compositors.
Keybindings
Default Bindings
Key | Binding |
---|---|
Left Arrow | Move cursor left |
Right Arrow | Move cursor right |
Up Arrow | Move to previous item |
Down Arrow | Move to next item |
Shift + Left Arrow | Select previous item |
Shift + Right Arrow | Select next item |
Shift + Alt + < | Select first item in actual list |
Shift + Alt + > | Select last item in actual list |
Shift + Page Up | Select first item in actual list |
Shift + Page Down | Select last item in actual list |
Page Up | Select first item in displayed list |
Page Down | Select last item in displayed list |
Tab | Move to next item |
Shift + Tab | Select item and place it in filter |
Esc | Exit bemenu |
Insert | Return filter text or selected items if multi selection |
Shift + Return | Return filter text or selected items if multi selection |
Return | Execute selected item |
Home | Curses cursor set to 0 |
End | Cursor set to end of filter text |
Backspace | Delete character at cursor |
Delete | Delete character at cursor |
Delete Left | Delete text before cursor |
Delete Right | Delete text after cursor |
Word Delete | Delete all text in filter |
Alt + v | Select last item in displayed list |
Alt + j | Select next item |
Alt + d | Select last item in display list |
Alt + l | Select previous item |
Alt + f | Select next item |
Alt + 0-9 | Execute selected item with custom exit code |
Ctrl + Return | Select item but don't quit to select multiple items |
Ctrl + g | Exit bemenu |
Ctrl + n | Select next item |
Ctrl + p | Select previous item |
Ctrl + a | Move cursor to beginning of text in filter |
Ctrl + e | Move cursor to end of text in filter |
Ctrl + h | Delete character at cursor |
Ctrl + u | Kill text behind cursor |
Ctrl + k | Kill text after cursor |
Ctrl + w | Kill all text in filter |
Ctrl + m | Execute selected item |
Ctrl + y | Paste clipboard |
Vim Bindings
Vim bindings can be activated via the --binding vim
option. All bindings are in vim
normal
mode. When bemenu is started with vim bindings it will be in insert
mode. By
pressing escape
, normal
mode can be activated.
Note: The default bindings can still be used for actions that do not have a separate vim binding such as launching a program or pasting.
Key | Binding |
---|---|
j/n | Goto next item |
k/p | Goto previous item |
h | Move cursor left |
l | Move cursor right |
q | Quit bemenu |
v | Toggle item selection |
i | Enter insert mode |
I | Move to line start and enter insert mode |
a | Move to the right and enter insert mode |
A | Move to line end and enter insert mode |
w | Move a word |
b | Move a word backwards |
e | Move to end of word |
x | Delete a character |
X | Delete a character before the cursor |
0 | Move to line start |
$ | Move to line end |
gg | Goto first item |
G | Goto last item |
H | Goto first item in view |
M | Goto middle item in view |
L | Goto last item in view |
F | Scroll one page of items down |
B | Scroll one page of items up |
dd | Delete the whole line |
dw | Delete a word |
db | Delete a word backwards |
d0 | Delete to start of line |
d$ | Delete to end of line |
cc | Change the whole line |
cw | Change a word |
cb | Change a word backwards |
c0 | Change to start of line |
c$ | Change to end of line |
Projects using bemenu
License
- GNU GPLv3 (or any later version) for client program[s] and other sources except library and bindings
- GNU LGPLv3 (or any later version) for library and bindings