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  • Dmenu is one of the suckless program I still actively use
  * There's a few other suggested tools
  * Like xbanish but only one listed as a suckless tool
    * st is installed for when Alacritty breaks though

  • Wanted to talk about
  * Why I've stuck with dmenu

Table of Contents

Patches

  • Patching is one of those super annoying things about suckless utils
  • Unlike other tools
  * Dmenu is perfectly usable without
    * Infact I didn't bother patching for some months

  • Most dmenu patches I've added are aesthetic
  * In fact in general most are

  • I've added in highlight
  * Visually show what you're matched on

  • Line height was a really important one for me
  * My poylbar is higher than dmenus default height
    * Looked a bit weird

  • Numbers
  * Shows how many results there are
    * how many match on query

  • Custom colour scheme patch
  * So if you want it
  * It's on my github

  • One feature patch
  * Instant
    * If there's only 1 result just select it
    * No need to show prompt

Functional Patches To Note

https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/patches/highpriority/ https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/patches/fuzzymatch/ https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/patches/incremental/

Fits Into A Window Manager

  • I could do what I do with most tools
  * I run a window manager
  * Do a lot of terminal stuff
    * Typically like lightweight simple tools
      * Dmenu is exactly that

Speed

  • The biggest list of data I use is about 3700 items
  * My app launcher
  * Absolutely no noticable performance dip
    * Even on my laptop
  * That's not to say it's magic
    * It might lag with 1,000,000
      * But for realistic use cases it's lightning fast

Installation

  • Since it's usable without patching
  * It's sensible to install with your package manager

  • You will be dissapointed with st if you did that

Compatibility

  • Doesn't require special input
  * Just takes new line seperated list
  * Can switch to fzf or rofi without touching my scripts

  • I heavily use dmenu in scripts
  * Basically any time I need a choice
  * Key bindings would be quicker
    * I only have so many keys

Rofi

  • Rofi is probably amazing
  * I've seen some crazy custom themes
  * Where it's not even the same app anymore

  • But out of the box it looks awful
  * Getting it to the point where it looks good
  * Takes a bit of time

  • I can slap dmenu on a new system and be happy
  • If you're happy on rofi
  * I couldn't convince you to use dmenu
  * But if you're looking for a light launcher dmenu is great choice

  • I'm not going to talk about topic
  * Mental Outlaw did a video on, I don't actually care