JWMenu

JWMenu is a small, configurable menu runner built on top of rofi.

Menus are defined declaratively using TOML configuration files and may contain arbitrary levels of nested submenus. Each menu entry can either execute a command or open another submenu.

It can be used to build system menus, power menus, application launchers, or any other structured rofi-based workflows.

Read more about why I created JWMenu.

Features

• Hierarchical menus with arbitrary nesting
• Declarative configuration using TOML
• Supports multiple independent menus via separate configuration files
• Minimal runtime dependencies

Nix

Running

nix run github:jonwin1/jwmenu -- path/to/menu.toml

or

git clone https://github.com/jonwin1/jwmenu.git
cd jwmenu
nix run . -- path/to/menu.toml

Building

git clone https://github.com/jonwin1/jwmenu.git
cd jwmenu
nix build

Builds the executable result/bin/jwmenu.

Installing

Add it as an input in your flake.nix:

inputs = {
  # ...
  jwmenu = {
    url = "github:jonwin1/jwmenu";
    inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
  };
};

And add the package to environment.systemPackages or home.packages:

inputs.jwmenu.packages.${system}.default

Rebuild your configuration and jump to Usage.

Non-Nix systems

Dependencies

• rofi
• A C17-compatible compiler

Make

git clone https://github.com/jonwin1/jwmenu.git
cd jwmenu
make

This will produce the jwmenu binary in the project root.

Usage

jwmenu path/to/menu.toml

Configuration

The menu is defined using a TOML file with nested tables.

Example

[config]
label = "Example Menu"

[[config.menu]]
label = "󰎤    Simple command"
command = "notify-send Simple"

[[config.menu]]
label = "󰎧    Multiline command"
command = """
echo Hello
notify-send Hello
"""

[[config.menu]]
label = "󰎪    Submenu →"

[[config.menu.submenu]]
label = "nested item"
command = "notify-send 'Hello from submenu'"

See more examples in config/.

Semantics

• Each menu entry has a label
• An entry with a command executes that command
• An entry without a command is treated as a submenu
• Selecting a command closes the entire menu stack
• Pressing Esc closes the current menu level

Project Structure

.
├── config/           # Example menus
│   └── ...
├── lib/
│   ├── tomlc17.c     # TOML parsing library
│   └── tomlc17.h
├── LICENSES/
│   └── ...
├── src/
│   ├── config.c      # TOML parsing
│   ├── config.h
│   ├── main.c        # Entry point
│   ├── menu.c        # Menu logic and rofi interaction
│   ├── menu.h
│   ├── util.c        # Helper functions
│   └── util.h
├── flake.lock        # Flake dependencies lock
├── flake.nix         # Nix package and devshell definition
├── Makefile
├── README.md
└── REUSE.toml

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSES/MIT.txt.

Acknowledgements

• rofi
• tomlc17