ZaneA / openbox-command-palette

Parse Openbox (pipe-)menus into a flat list suitable for use by other scripts.

openbox-command-palette

Parses Openbox menu config, or pipe menus, flattening output into a list suitable for use by other scripts.

If you're like me and use Openbox menus (and pipe menus) extensively on your desktop this makes it easier to not waste that effort while using other desktop environments :)

Right now there isn't anything to configure, e.g. separators. Please open an issue if you'd find this useful.

Installing

Using cargo (a shell.nix is provided for Nix users):

# will install to ~/.cargo/bin/openbox-command-palette
$ cargo install --git https://github.com/ZaneA/openbox-command-palette

Usage

Basic usage

$ openbox-command-palette
Usage: openbox-command-palette <path to wrapper> <path to openbox menu.xml or pipe menu command>

For example:

$ openbox-command-palette wrapper.sh ~/.config/openbox/menu.xml
terminal                                     # xterm
files                                        # thunar
a pipemenu                                   # wrapper.sh "pipemenu-script"
system audio volume                          # pavucontrol
system audio patchbay                        # helvum

Usage with a wrapper

openbox-command-palette expects to be used within a user-defined wrapper script that will pass the output to a suitable UI. This is crucial for navigating through pipe menus.

An example using rofi/dmenu or xmenu would look like:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# rofi
OUTPUT=$(~/.cargo/bin/openbox-command-palette "$0" "$1" | rofi -dmenu)
# xmenu
#OUTPUT=$(~/.cargo/bin/openbox-command-palette "$0" "$1" | xmenu -r -i)
IFS='#'; arrOUTPUT=(${OUTPUT}); unset IFS
COMMAND=${arrOUTPUT[1]##*( )}
if [ -n "$COMMAND" ]; then
    sh -c "$COMMAND" &
fi

This will provide a filterable command-palette style launcher, and allow you to navigate through pipe menus (i.e. re-launching the wrapper with the new menu).