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Menu


Menu menu-name [position] [double-click-action]

Causes a previously defined menu to be popped up in a sticky manner. That is, if the user invokes the menu with a click action instead of a drag action, the menu stays up. The command double-click-action is invoked if the user double-clicks a button (or hits the key rapidly twice if the menu is bound to a key) when bringing up the menu. If the double click action is not specified, double clicking on the menu does nothing. However, if the menu begins with a menu item (i.e. not with a title or a separator) and the double click action is not given, double clicking invokes the first item of the menu (but only if the pointer really was over the item).

The pointer is warped to where it was when the menu was invoked if it was both invoked and closed with a keystroke.

The position arguments allow placement of the menu somewhere on the screen, for example centered on the visible screen or above a title bar. Basically it works like this: you specify a context-rectangle and an offset to this rectangle by which the upper left corner of the menu is moved from the upper left corner of the rectangle. The position arguments consist of several parts:

[context-rectangle] x y [special-options]

The context-rectangle can be one of:

Root

the root window of the current screen.

XineramaRoot

the root window of the whole Xinerama screen. Equivalent to "root" when Xinerama is not used.

Mouse

a 1x1 rectangle at the mouse position.

Window

the frame of the context window.

Interior

the inside of the context window.

Title

the title of the context window or icon.

Button<n>

button #n of the context window.

Icon

the icon of the context window.

Menu

the current menu.

Item

the current menu item.

Context

the current window, menu or icon.

This

whatever widget the pointer is on (e.g. a corner of a window or the root window).

Rectangle <geometry>

the rectangle defined by <geometry> in X geometry format. Width and height default to 1 if omitted.

If the context-rectangle is omitted or illegal (e.g. "item" on a window), "Mouse" is the default. Note that not all of these make sense under all circumstances (e.g. "Icon" if the pointer is on a menu).

The offset values x and y specify how far the menu is moved from its default position. By default, the numeric value given is interpreted as a percentage of the context rectangle's width (height), but with a trailing 'm' the menu's width (height) is used instead. Furthermore a trailing 'p' changes the interpretation to mean pixels.

Instead of a single value you can use a list of values. All additional numbers after the first one are separated from their predecessor by their sign. Do not use any other separators.

If x or y are prefixed with "'o<number>" where <number> is an integer, the menu and the rectangle are moved to overlap at the specified position before any other offsets are applied. The menu and the rectangle are placed so that the pixel at <number> percent of the rectangle's width/height is right over the pixel at <number> percent of the menu's width/height. So "o0" means that the top/left borders of the menu and the rectangle overlap, with "o100" it's the bottom/right borders and if you use "o50" they are centered upon each other (try it and you will see it is much simpler than this description). The default is "o0". The prefix "o<number>" is an abbreviation for "+<number>-<number>m".

A prefix of 'c' is equivalent to "o50". Examples:

# window list in the middle of the screen
WindowList Root c c

# menu to the left of a window
Menu name window -100m c+0

# popup menu 8 pixels above the mouse pointer
Popup name mouse c -100m-8p

# somewhere on the screen
Menu name rectangle 512x384+1+1 +0 +0

# centered vertically around a menu item
AddToMenu foobar-menu
 + "first item" Nop
 + "special item" Popup "another menu" item +100 c
 + "last item" Nop

# above the first menu item
AddToMenu foobar-menu
 + "first item" Popup "another menu" item +0 -100m

Note that you can put a sub menu far off the current menu so you could not reach it with the mouse without leaving the menu. If the pointer leaves the current menu in the general direction of the sub menu the menu stays up.

The special-options:

To create a tear off menu without opening the normal menu, add the option TearOffImmediately. Normally the menu opens in normal state for a split second before being torn off. As tearing off places the menu like any other window, a position should be specified explicitly:

# Forbid fvwm to place the menu window
Style <name of menu> UsePPosition
# Menu at top left corner of screen
Menu Root 0p 0p TearOffImmediately

The Animated and Mwm or Win menu styles may move a menu somewhere else on the screen. If you do not want this you can add Fixed as an option. This might happen for example if you want the menu always in the top right corner of the screen.

Where do you want a menu to appear when you click on its menu item? The default is to place the title under the cursor, but if you want it where the position arguments say, use the SelectInPlace option. If you want the pointer on the title of the menu, use SelectWarp too. Note that these options apply only if the PopupAsRootMenu MenuStyle option is used.

The pointer is warped to the title of a sub menu whenever the pointer would be on an item when the sub menu is popped up (fvwm menu style) or never warped to the title at all (Mwm or Win menu styles). You can force (forbid) warping whenever the sub menu is opened with the WarpTitle (NoWarp) option.

Note that the special-options do work with a normal menu that has no other position arguments.


fvwm 2.6.5