PDMENU
Section: Commands (1)
Updated: August 09 2014
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NAME
pdmenu - simple full screen menu program
SYNOPSIS
pdmenu [options] [
menufile ...]
DESCRIPTION
pdmenu
is a simple menu program that displays a menu from which the
user can pick programs to run. Submenus are supported.
When you run
pdmenu
, you will be presented with a menu. Simply use the arrow
keys to move to the program you want to run, and press Enter to run the
program. When the program ends, you will be returned to the menu.
If you are running
pdmenu
at the linux console, and gpm is running, you can
move the mouse and click to navigate through the menus.
Some menu items are actually submenus, and will take you to another menu.
Others may cause a text edit window to be displayed, where you can enter
parameters for a command before running it. Still others may run a command,
and display the output in a window.
KEYS
Here are all keys you need to get around in
pdmenu:
- [up arrow], 8, -
-
Move up one line in the menu.
- [down arrow], 2, +
-
Move down one line.
- [page up], [ctrl-u]
-
Move up an entire screen.
- [page down], [space], [ctrl-v]
-
Move down an entire screen.
- [home]
-
Move to the first entry of the menu.
- [end]
-
Move to the last entry of the menu.
- q
-
Exit the current menu, or exit
pdmenu
if used on the first menu. Does not
work in the text edit windows. (This will not work if there is also a hotkey
set up for 'q', the hotkey takes precedence.)
- ESC
-
Close the currently active window, and return to the previous window, or
exit
pdmenu
if used on the first menu.
- [ctrl-c]
-
Exit
pdmenu
immediately.
- [ctrl-r]
-
Force a redraw of the screen.
- [enter]
-
Launch the selected menu item. In a text edit window, closes the window.
- [backspace]
-
Performs a destructive backspace in a text edit window.
- hotkeys
-
Some letters of a menu item may be highlighted. These are hotkeys; simply
press the highlighted letter to select the next menu item with that hotkey.
OPTIONS
- -h, --help
-
Display usage summary and exit.
- -c, --color
-
Use color. By default,
pdmenu
will display in black and white mode. If your
terminal supports color, use this switch.
- -u, --unpark
-
"Unparks" the cursor from the bottom of the screen. When this option is
selected, the cursor moves to be on the line of the menu that is currently
selected. This makes
pdmenu
more useable with speech synthesis systems that
need to know what line is the current line on the screen.
- -mmenuid, --menu=menuid
-
Instead of displaying the first menu from the menufile, select the menu
with the id "menuid" and display it.
- -q, --quit
-
By default, at the opening menu, 'q' will exit pdmenu.
If the -q switch is
specified, this will not be the case. This is useful if you want to prevent
the user from ever exiting pdmenu.
(This also disables control-c and the right mouse button from exiting
pdmenu.)
- -r, --retro
-
This makes
pdmenu
use an old style for displaying menus. Menus in the background don't change
color, or lose their hotkeys. Note that this will also be a little bit
faster than the default on slow terminals and the like.
- -l, --lowbit
-
By default,
pdmenu
will use nice high bit line drawing characters if it
thinks your terminal is capable. Sometimes it gets this wrong and you get
borders that look all messed up. Then you should use this --lowbit switch to
force it to use low bit line drawing characters.
- -n, --numeric
-
Disables the use of the keys 2 and 8 for moving up and down. This is useful
if you want to use numbered hotkeys.
- menufile ...
-
Specify a menu definition file or files to use. If you specify multiple
files, they will all be loaded in together. By default, the first menu in
the first menufile will be displayed when
pdmenu
starts, but this can be overridden by the --menu= option.
If menufile is "-", pdmenu will read standard input as a menu file.
NOTES
To use the mouse to cut and paste as usual, hold down on the shift key when
you use the mouse.
FILES
/etc/pdmenurc
-
Default config file. See
pdmenurc(5)
for details.
~/.pdmenurc
-
If this exists, it overrides /etc/pdmenurc. See
pdmenurc(5)
for details.
ENVIRONMENT
- COLORTERM
-
Set this variable to make
pdmenu
to use color by default.
DISTRIBUTION
Redistribution is subject to the GNU public license.
BUGS
See the file BUGS that came with
pdmenu
for the current buglist.
AUTHOR
Joey Hess, <
joey@kitenet.net>.
SEE ALSO
pdmenurc(5)
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- KEYS
-
- OPTIONS
-
- NOTES
-
- FILES
-
- ENVIRONMENT
-
- DISTRIBUTION
-
- BUGS
-
- AUTHOR
-
- SEE ALSO
-