awesome-appmenu is a tool to create a menu of installed applications for the awesome window manager. It searches for and parses .desktop files to find the name, execution command, and icon of installed applications. These are then grouped into categories, sorted, and written to a lua script ($HOME/.config/awesome/appmenu.lua) that can be used in your awesome WM configuration script.
To modify the default settings, edit the variables launcherpaths, iconpaths, and categories in $HOME/.config/awesome-appmenu/menurc.py. launcherpaths and iconpaths are searched in the order listed in this file, so list them in order of your preference. Categories will appear in the menu in the order they are listed in the config file. A sample configuration is supplied and installed by default at /usr/share/awesome-appmenu/menurc.py when you run make install.
Features of awesome-appmenu:
- Supports icons
- Fully configurable search paths for launchers and icons
- Fully configurable categories
- Can create a custom Favorites menu
- Searches recursively for launchers in specified search paths
- Properly ignores .desktop files with NoDisplay=true, and does not write empty categories
- Ungrouped launchers are automatically put into a Miscellaneous category
================================================================================
Intallation:
Type make install or make install DESTDIR=/target/install/directory (the latter to install in a custom directory).
================================================================================
Running:
Just type awesome-appmenu. The file appmenu.lua will be placed in $HOME/.config/awesome. Command line options: --no-icons, -n: Do not include icons in the menu --verbose, -v: Print verbose output for debugging --help, -h: Show usage information
================================================================================
Using the menu:
Put in your rc.lua:
local appmenu = require("appmenu")
...
mymainmenu = awful.menu({ items = { { "applications", appmenu.Appmenu }, ...
You can also use the menus for categories individually, e.g., by referencing appmenu.Applications, appmenu.Office, etc. If you put any .desktop files in the favorites list (favorites = [ ... ] in menurc.py), a favorites menu will also be created, which can be accessed via appmenu.Favorites.
================================================================================
Screenshot of the menu's appearance:
