Sets a new menu style or changes a previously defined style. The stylename is the style name; if it contains spaces or tabs it has to be quoted. The name "*" is reserved for the default menu style. The default menu style is used for every menu-like object (e.g. the window created by the WindowList command) that had not be assigned a style using the ChangeMenuStyle. See also DestroyMenuStyle. When using monochrome color options are ignored.

options is a comma separated list containing some of the keywords Fvwm / Mwm / Win, BorderWidth, Foreground, Background, Greyed, HilightBack / !HilightBack, HilightTitleBack, ActiveFore / !ActiveFore, MenuColorset, ActiveColorset, GreyedColorset, TitleColorset, Hilight3DThick / Hilight3DThin / Hilight3DOff, Hilight3DThickness, Animation / !Animation, Font, TitleFont, MenuFace, PopupDelay, PopupOffset, TitleWarp / !TitleWarp, TitleUnderlines0 / TitleUnderlines1 / TitleUnderlines2, SeparatorsLong / SeparatorsShort, TrianglesSolid / TrianglesRelief, PopupImmediately / PopupDelayed, PopdownImmediately / PopdownDelayed, PopupActiveArea, DoubleClickTime, SidePic, SideColor, PopupAsRootMenu / PopupAsSubmenu / PopupIgnore / PopupClose, RemoveSubmenus / HoldSubmenus, SubmenusRight / SubmenusLeft, SelectOnRelease, ItemFormat, VerticalItemSpacing, VerticalMargins, VerticalTitleSpacing, AutomaticHotkeys / !AutomaticHotkeys, UniqueHotkeyActivatesImmediate / !UniqueHotkeyActivatesImmediate, MouseWheel, ScrollOffPage / !ScrollOffPage, TrianglesUseFore / !TrianglesUseFore.

In the above list some options are listed as option pairs or triples with a '/' in between. These options exclude each other. All paired options can be negated to have the effect of the counterpart option by prefixing ! to the option.

Some options are now negated by prefixing ! to the option. This is the preferred form for all such options. The other negative forms are now deprecated and will be removed in the future.

This is a list of MenuStyle deprecated negative options: ActiveForeOff, AnimationOff, AutomaticHotkeysOff, HilightBackOff, TitleWarpOff

Fvwm, Mwm, Win reset all options to the style with the same name in former versions of fvwm. The default for new menu styles is Fvwm style. These options override all others except Foreground, Background, Greyed, HilightBack, ActiveFore and PopupDelay, so they should be used only as the first option specified for a menu style or to reset the style to defined behavior. The same effect can be created by setting all the other options one by one.

Mwm and Win style menus popup sub menus automatically. Win menus indicate the current menu item by changing the background to dark. Fvwm sub menus overlap the parent menu, Mwm and Win style menus never overlap the parent menu.

Fvwm style is equivalent to !HilightBack, Hilight3DThin, !ActiveFore, !Animation, Font, MenuFace, PopupOffset 0 67, TitleWarp, TitleUnderlines1, SeparatorsShort, TrianglesRelief, PopupDelayed, PopdownDelayed, PopupDelay 150, PopdownDelay 150, PopupAsSubmenu, HoldSubmenus, SubmenusRight, BorderWidth 2, !AutomaticHotkeys, UniqueHotkeyActivatesImmediate, PopupActiveArea 75.

Mwm style is equivalent to !HilightBack, Hilight3DThick, !ActiveFore, !Animation, Font, MenuFace, PopupOffset -3 100, !TitleWarp, TitleUnderlines2, SeparatorsLong, TrianglesRelief, PopupImmediately, PopdownDelayed, PopdownDelay 150, PopupAsSubmenu, HoldSubmenus, SubmenusRight, BorderWidth 2, UniqueHotkeyActivatesImmediate, !AutomaticHotkeys, PopupActiveArea 75.

Win style is equivalent to HilightBack, Hilight3DOff, ActiveFore, !Animation, Font, MenuFace, PopupOffset -5 100, !TitleWarp, TitleUnderlines1, SeparatorsShort, TrianglesSolid, PopupImmediately, PopdownDelayed, PopdownDelay 150, PopupAsSubmenu, RemoveSubmenus, SubmenusRight, BorderWidth 2, UniqueHotkeyActivatesImmediate, !AutomaticHotkeys, PopupActiveArea 75.

BorderWidth takes the thickness of the border around the menus in pixels. It may be zero to 50 pixels. The default is 2. Using an illegal value reverts the border width to the default.

Foreground and Background may have a color name as an argument. This color is used for menu text or the menu's background. You can omit the color name to reset these colors to the built-in default.

Greyed may have a color name as an argument. This color is the one used to draw a menu-selection which is prohibited (or not recommended) by the Mwm hints which an application has specified. If the color is omitted the color of greyed menu entries is based on the background color of the menu.

HilightBack and !HilightBack switch hilighting the background of the selected menu item on and off. A specific background color may be used by providing the color name as an argument to HilightBack. If you use this option without an argument the color is based on the menu's background color. The ActiveColorset option overrides the specified color. If the colorset has a non solid background it is used for the hilighting.

HilightTitleBack switches hilighting the background of menu titles on. If a TitleColorset was used, the background colour is taken from there. Otherwise the color is based on the menu's background color. If the colorset has a non solid background it is used for the hilighting.

ActiveFore and !ActiveFore switch hilighting the foreground of the selected menu item on and off. A specific foreground color may be used by providing the color name as an argument to ActiveFore. Omitting the color turns hilighting on when an ActiveColorset is used. ActiveFore turns off hilighting the foreground completely. The ActiveColorset option overrides the specified color.

MenuColorset controls if a colorset is used instead of the Foreground, Background and MenuFace menu styles. If the MenuColorset keyword is followed by a number equal to zero or greater, this number is taken as the number of the colorset to use. If the number is omitted, the colorset is switched off and the regular menu styles are used again. The foreground and background colors of the menu items are replaced by the colors from the colorset. If the colorset has a pixmap defined, this pixmap is used as the background of the menu. Note that the MenuFace menu style has been optimized for memory consumption and may use less memory than the background from a colorset. The shape mask from the colorset is used to shape the menu. Please refer to the Colorsets section for details about colorsets.

ActiveColorset works exactly like MenuColorset, but the foreground from the colorset replaces the color given with the ActiveFore menu style and the colorset's background color replaces the color given with the HilightBack command (to turn on background hilighting you have to use the HilightBack menu style too). If specified, the hilight and shadow colors from the colorset are used too. The pixmap and shape mask from the colorset are not used. Hilighting the background or foreground can be turned off individually with the !ActiveFore or !HilightBack menu styles.

GreyedColorset works exactly like MenuColorset, but the foreground from the colorset replaces the color given with the Greyed menu style. No other parts of the colorset are used.

TitleColorset works exactly like MenuColorset, but is used only for menu titles.

Hilight3DThick, Hilight3DThin and Hilight3DOff determine if the selected menu item is hilighted with a 3D relief. Thick reliefs are two pixels wide, thin reliefs are one pixel wide.

Hilight3DThickness takes one numeric argument that may be between -50 and +50 pixels. With negative values the menu item gets a pressed in look. The above three commands are equivalent to a thickness of 2, 1 and 0.

Animation and !Animation turn menu animation on or off. When animation is on, sub menus that do not fit on the screen cause the parent menu to be shifted to the left so the sub menu can be seen.

Font and TitleFont take a font name as an argument. If a font by this name exists it is used for the text of all menu items. If it does not exist or if the name is left blank the built-in default is used. If a TitleFont is given, it is used for all menu titles instead of the normal font.

MenuFace enforces a fancy background upon the menus. You can use the same options for MenuFace as for the ButtonStyle. See description of ButtonStyle command and the Color Gradients sections for more information. If you use MenuFace without arguments the style is reverted back to normal.

Some examples of MenuFaces are:

MenuFace DGradient 128 2 lightgrey 50 blue 50 white
MenuFace TiledPixmap texture10.xpm
MenuFace HGradient 128 2 Red 40 Maroon 60 White
MenuFace Solid Maroon

Note: The gradient styles H, V, B and D are optimized for high speed and low memory consumption in menus. This is not the case for all the other gradient styles. They may be slow and consume huge amounts of memory, so if you encounter performance problems with them you may be better off by not using them. To improve performance you can try one or all of the following:

Turn hilighting of the active menu item other than foreground color off:

MenuStyle <style> Hilight3DOff, !HilightBack
MenuStyle <style> ActiveFore <preferred color>

Make sure sub menus do not overlap the parent menu. This can prevent menus being redrawn every time a sub menu pops up or down.

MenuStyle <style> PopupOffset 1 100

Run your X server with backing storage. If your X Server is started with the -bs option, turn it off. If not try the -wm and +bs options:

You may have to adapt this example to your system (e.g. if you use xinit to start X).

PopupDelay requires one numeric argument. This value is the delay in milliseconds before a sub menu is popped up when the pointer moves over a menu item that has a sub menu. If the value is zero no automatic pop up is done. If the argument is omitted the built-in default is used. Note that the popup delay has no effect if the PopupImmediately option is used since sub menus pop up immediately then.

PopupImmediately makes menu items with sub menus pop up it up as soon as the pointer enters the item. The PopupDelay option is ignored then. If PopupDelayed is used fvwm looks at the PopupDelay option if or when this automatic popup happens.

PopdownDelay works exactly like PopupDelay but determines the timeout of the PopupDelayed style.

PopdownImmediately makes sub menus vanish as soon as the pointer leaves the sub menu and the correspondent item in the parent menu. With the opposite option PopdownDelayed the sub menu only pops down after the time specified with the PopdownDelay option. This comes handy when the pointer often strays off the menu item when trying to move into the sub menu. Whenever there is a conflict between the PopupImmediately, PopupDelayed, PopupDelay styles and the PopdownImmediately, PopdownDelayed, PopdownDelay styles, the Popup... styles win when using mouse navigation and the Popdown... styles win when navigating with the keyboard.

PopupOffset requires two integer arguments. Both values affect where sub menus are placed relative to the parent menu. If both values are zero, the left edge of the sub menu overlaps the left edge of the parent menu. If the first value is non-zero the sub menu is shifted that many pixels to the right (or left if negative). If the second value is non-zero the menu is moved by that many percent of the parent menu's width to the right or left.

PopupActiveArea requires an integer value between 51 and 100. Normally, when the pointer is over a menu item with a sub menu and the pointer enters the area that starts at 75% of the menu width, the sub menu is shown immediately. This percentage can be changed with PopupActiveArea. Setting this value to 100 disables this kind of automatic popups altogether. The default value is restored if no or an illegal value is given.

TitleWarp and !TitleWarp affect if the pointer warps to the menu title when a sub menu is opened or not. Note that regardless of this setting the pointer is not warped if the menu does not pop up under the pointer.

TitleUnderlines0, TitleUnderlines1 and TitleUnderlines2 specify how many lines are drawn below a menu title.

SeparatorsLong and SeparatorsShort set the length of menu separators. Long separators run from the left edge all the way to the right edge. Short separators leave a few pixels to the edges of the menu.

TrianglesSolid and TrianglesRelief affect how the small triangles for sub menus is drawn. Solid triangles are filled with a color while relief triangles are hollow.

DoubleClickTime requires one numeric argument. This value is the time in milliseconds between two mouse clicks in a menu to be considered as a double click. The default is 450 milliseconds. If the argument is omitted the double click time is reset to this default.

SidePic takes the name of an image file as an argument. The picture is drawn along the left side of the menu. The SidePic option can be overridden by a menu specific side pixmap (see AddToMenu). If the file name is omitted an existing side pixmap is removed from the menu style.

SideColor takes the name of an X11 color as an argument. This color is used to color the column containing the side picture (see above). The SideColor option can be overridden by a menu specific side color (see AddToMenu). If the color name is omitted the side color option is switched off.

PopupAsRootMenu, PopupAsSubmenu, PopupIgnore and PopupClose change the behavior when you click on a menu item that opens a sub menu. With PopupAsRootMenu the original menu is closed before the sub menu appears, with PopupAsSubmenu it is not, so you can navigate back into the parent menu. Furthermore, with PopupAsSubmenu the sub menu is held open (posted) regardless of where you move the mouse. Depending on your menu style this may simplify navigating through the menu. Any keystroke while a menu is posted reverts the menu back to the normal behavior. With PopupClose the menu is closed when a sub menu item is activated, and the menu stays open if PopupIgnore is used (even if the menu was invoked with the Popup command). PopupAsSubmenu is the default.

RemoveSubmenus instructs fvwm to remove sub menu when you move back into the parent menu. With HoldSubmenus the sub menu remains visible. You probably want to use HoldSubmenus if you are using the PopupDelayed style. RemoveSubmenus affects menu navigation with the keyboard.

SelectOnRelease takes an optional key name as an argument. If the given key is released in a menu using this style, the current menu item is selected. This is intended for Alt-Tab WindowList navigation. The key name is a standard X11 key name as defined in /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h, (without the XK_ prefix), or the keysym database /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XKeysymDB. To disable this behavior, omit the key name.

Note: Some X servers do not support KeyRelease events. SelectOnRelease does not work on such a machine.

ItemFormat takes a special string as its argument that determines the layout of the menu items. Think of the format string as if it were a menu item. All you have to do is tell fvwm where to place the different parts of the menu item (i.e. the labels, the triangle denoting a sub menu, the mini icons and the side pic) in the blank area. The string consists of spaces, Tab characters and formatting directives beginning with '%'. Any illegal characters and formatting directives are silently ignored:

You can define an additional space before and after each of the objects like this:

%left.rightp

This means: if the object is defined in the menu (e.g. if it is %s and you use a side picture, or it is %l for the third column and there are items defined that actually have a third column), then add left pixels before the object and right pixels after it. You may leave out the left or the .right parts if you do not need them. All values up to the screen width are allowed. Even negative values can be used with care. The p may be replaced with any other formatting directives described above.

Note: Only items defined in the format string are visible in the menus. So if you do not put a %s in there you do not see a side picture, even if one is specified.

Note: The SubmenusLeft style changes the default ItemFormat string, but if it was set manually it is not modified.

Note: If any unformatted title of the menu is wider than the widest menu item, the spaces between the different parts of the menu items are enlarged to match the width of the title. Leading left aligned objects in the format string (%l, %i, %<, first %|) stick to the left edge of the menu and trailing right aligned objects (%r, %i, %>, second %|) stick to the right edge. The gaps between the remaining items are enlarged equally.

Examples:

MenuStyle * ItemFormat "%.4s%.1|%.5i%.5l%.5l%.5r%.5i%2.3>%1|"

Is the default string used by fvwm: (side picture + 4 pixels gap) (beginning of the hilighted area + 1 pixel gap) (mini icon + 5p) (first column left aligned + 5p) (second column left aligned + 5p) (third column right aligned + 5p) (second mini icon + 5p) (2p + sub menu triangle + 3p) (1p + end of hilighted area).

MenuStyle * ItemFormat "%.1|%3.2<%5i%5l%5l%5r%5i%1|%4s"

Is used by fvwm with the SubmenusLeft option below.

VerticalItemSpacing and VerticalTitleSpacing control the vertical spacing of menu items and titles like ItemFormat controls the horizontal spacing. Both take two numeric arguments that may range from -100 to +100. The first is the gap in pixels above a normal menu item (or a menu title), the second is the gap in pixels below it. Negative numbers do not make much sense and may screw up the menu completely. If no arguments are given or the given arguments are invalid, the built-in defaults are used: one pixel above the item or title and two below.

VerticalMargins can be used to add some padding at the top and bottom of menus. It takes two numeric arguments that must be positive integers (or zero). If the number of arguments or its values are incorrect, fvwm defaults both to 0, which means no padding at all. If the values are correct, the first one is used for the top margin, and the second one is used for the bottom margin.

SubmenusLeft mirrors the menu layout and behavior. Sub menus pop up to the left, the sub menu triangle is drawn left and the mini icon and side picture are drawn at the right side of the menu. The default is SubmenusRight. The position hints of a menu are also affected by this setting, i.e. position hints using item or menu as context rectangle and position hints using m offsets.

AutomaticHotkeys and !AutomaticHotkeys control the menu's ability to automatically provide hot-keys on the first character of each menu item's label. This behavior is always overridden if an explicit hot-key is assigned in the AddToMenu command.

UniqueHotkeyActivatesImmediate and !UniqueHotkeyActivatesImmediate controls how menu items are invoked when used with hotkeys. By default, if a given menu entry only has one completeable match for a given hotkey, the action for that menu entry is invoked and the menu is closed. This is due to the UniqueHotkeyActivatesImmediate option. However, the menu can be told to remain open, waiting for the user to invoke the selected item instead when there is only one matched item for a given hotkey, by using the !UniqueHotkeyActivatesImmediate option.

MouseWheel controls the ability to scroll the menu using a mouse wheel. It takes one argument, that can be one of ScrollsPointer, ScrollsMenu, ScrollsMenuBackwards or ActivatesItem. ScrollsPointer makes the mouse wheel scroll the pointer over a menu. This is the default. ScrollsMenu and ScrollsMenuBackwards scroll the menu beneath the pointer. ActivatesItem disables scrolling by mouse wheel and makes the use of a mouse wheel act as if the menu was clicked. If no argument is supplied the default setting is restored.

ScrollOffPage allows a menu to be scrolled out of the visible area if MouseWheel is set to ScrollsMenu or ScrollsMenuBackwards. This is the default. The opposite, !ScrollOffPage disables this behaviour.

TrianglesUseFore draws sub menu triangles with the foreground color of the menu colorset (normally drawn with the hilight color). !TrianglesUseFore disables this behaviour.

Examples:

MenuStyle * Mwm
MenuStyle * Foreground Black, Background gray40
MenuStyle * Greyed gray70, ActiveFore White
MenuStyle * !HilightBack, Hilight3DOff
MenuStyle * Font lucidasanstypewriter-14
MenuStyle * MenuFace DGradient 64 darkgray MidnightBlue

MenuStyle red Mwm
MenuStyle red Foreground Yellow
MenuStyle red Background Maroon
MenuStyle red Greyed Red, ActiveFore Red
MenuStyle red !HilightBack, Hilight3DOff
MenuStyle red Font lucidasanstypewriter-12
MenuStyle red MenuFace DGradient 64 Red Black

Note that all style options could be placed on a single line for each style name.

This is the old syntax of the MenuStyle command. It is obsolete and may be removed in the future. Please use the new syntax as described above.

Sets the menu style. When using monochrome the colors are ignored. The shadecolor is the one used to draw a menu-selection which is prohibited (or not recommended) by the Mwm hints which an application has specified. The style option is either Fvwm, Mwm or Win, which changes the appearance and operation of the menus.

Mwm and Win style menus popup sub menus automatically. Win menus indicate the current menu item by changing the background to black. Fvwm sub menus overlap the parent menu, Mwm and Win style menus never overlap the parent menu.

When the anim option is given, sub menus that do not fit on the screen cause the parent menu to be shifted to the left so the sub menu can be seen. See also SetAnimation command.