dmenu for custom command menus

2026-01-20

My favorite use cases for dmenu are:

1. system command execution (dmenu_run)
2. clipboard manager (greenclip + dmenu)
3. custom command menus
4. snippet insertion

1 is shipped with dmenu and for 2 just follow the greenclip link above.

This article covers 3. For 4 see dmenu-snippets.

Custom command menus

To me it's important that every command can be executed with a single key stroke. That's why I have added some patches to dmenu.

Prerequisites

All you need is dmenu with these patches applied:

• tsv-alt
• instant mode
• instant first char (only in my custom dmenu fork: b46daaf)
• center (optional)

Or simply use the custom branch of my fork: ~maxgyver83/dmenu - sourcehut git

These patches allow a quick selection/execution of frequently used commands. Usually, you use one key combo to show the menu and then a single key stroke to select an entry.

Shell scripts

First, add this little helper script to your $PATH:

menu:

#!/bin/sh
# -q quiet = no notification
# example usage: see ~/bin/main-menu
cmd=$(dmenu -c -1 -l 15 -fn 'monospace:size=16')
[ "$cmd" ] || exit
[ "$1" = "-q" ] || notify-send "$cmd" &
echo "$cmd" | ${SHELL:-/bin/sh} &

Delete (or replace) the notify-send line if you don't use it.

Then, create your first menu like this example:

main-menu:

#!/bin/sh
menu <<"eof"
1 raspi1	st -e ssh raspi1
3 raspi3	st -e ssh raspi3
i ionos server	st -e ssh -t ionos 'tmux a || tmux'
w wiki links	url="$(wiki-links --dmenu)"; [ "$url" ] && firefox "$url"
p passmenu	passmenu
m transform markdown link	transform-markdown-link
u update-status	update-status.bash
o other menu	other-menu
eof

Important:

• There is a tab before each command!
• Take care not to use the same selection key (first column) twice!

By the way: You can nest as many menus as you like.

As a final step, you could bind main-menu to a key combo in your ~/.config/sxhkd/sxhkdrc or whatever you use for global key bindings:

super + alt + space
    ~/bin/main-menu