NAME

       pdmenu - simple full screen menu program

SYNOPSIS

       pdmenu [options] [menufile ...]

DESCRIPTION

       pdmenu  is  a  simple  menu  program  that  displays a menu from which the user can pick programs to run.
       Submenus are supported.

       When you run pdmenu , you will be presented with a menu. Simply use the arrow keys to move to the program
       you  want  to run, and press Enter to run the program. When the program ends, you will be returned to the
       menu.

       If you are running pdmenu at the linux console, and gpm is running, you can move the mouse and  click  to
       navigate through the menus.

       Some  menu  items are actually submenus, and will take you to another menu.  Others may cause a text edit
       window to be displayed, where you can enter parameters for a command before running it. Still others  may
       run a command, and display the output in a window.

KEYS

       Here are all keys you need to get around in pdmenu:

       [up arrow], 8, -
              Move up one line in the menu.

       [down arrow], 2, +
              Move down one line.

       [page up], [ctrl-u]
              Move up an entire screen.

       [page down], [space], [ctrl-v]
              Move down an entire screen.

       [home] Move to the first entry of the menu.

       [end]  Move to the last entry of the menu.

       q      Exit  the  current  menu, or exit pdmenu if used on the first menu. Does not work in the text edit
              windows. (This will not work if there  is  also  a  hotkey  set  up  for  'q',  the  hotkey  takes
              precedence.)

       ESC    Close  the  currently  active window, and return to the previous window, or exit pdmenu if used on
              the first menu.

       [ctrl-c]
              Exit pdmenu immediately.

       [ctrl-r]
              Force a redraw of the screen.

       [enter]
              Launch the selected menu item. In a text edit window, closes the window.

       [backspace]
              Performs a destructive backspace in a text edit window.

       hotkeys
              Some letters of a menu item may be highlighted. These are hotkeys; simply  press  the  highlighted
              letter to select the next menu item with that hotkey.

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
              Display usage summary and exit.

       -c, --color
              Use  color.  By  default,  pdmenu  will display in black and white mode. If your terminal supports
              color, use this switch.

       -u, --unpark
              "Unparks" the cursor from the bottom of the screen. When this option is selected, the cursor moves
              to  be  on  the  line  of the menu that is currently selected. This makes pdmenu more useable with
              speech synthesis systems that need to know what line is the current line on the screen.

       -mmenuid, --menu=menuid
              Instead of displaying the first menu from the menufile, select the menu with the id  "menuid"  and
              display it.

       -q, --quit
              By  default,  at the opening menu, 'q' will exit pdmenu.  If the -q switch is specified, this will
              not be the case. This is useful if you want to prevent the user from ever exiting  pdmenu.   (This
              also disables control-c and the right mouse button from exiting pdmenu.)

       -r, --retro
              This  makes  pdmenu  use  an  old style for displaying menus. Menus in the background don't change
              color, or lose their hotkeys. Note that this will also be a little bit faster than the default  on
              slow terminals and the like.

       -l, --lowbit
              By  default,  pdmenu  will use nice high bit line drawing characters if it thinks your terminal is
              capable. Sometimes it gets this wrong and you get borders that look all messed up. Then you should
              use this --lowbit switch to force it to use low bit line drawing characters.

       -n, --numeric
              Disables  the  use  of  the keys 2 and 8 for moving up and down. This is useful if you want to use
              numbered hotkeys.

       menufile ...
              Specify a menu definition file or files to use. If you specify multiple files, they  will  all  be
              loaded in together. By default, the first menu in the first menufile will be displayed when pdmenu
              starts, but this can be overridden by the --menu= option.  If menufile is "-",  pdmenu  will  read
              standard input as a menu file.

NOTES

       To use the mouse to cut and paste as usual, hold down on the shift key when you use the mouse.

FILES

       /etc/pdmenurc
              Default config file. See pdmenurc(5) for details.
       ~/.pdmenurc
              If this exists, it overrides /etc/pdmenurc. See pdmenurc(5) for details.

ENVIRONMENT

       COLORTERM
              Set this variable to make pdmenu to use color by default.

DISTRIBUTION

       Redistribution is subject to the GNU public license.

BUGS

       See the file BUGS that came with pdmenu for the current buglist.

AUTHOR

       Joey Hess, <joey@kitenet.net>.

SEE ALSO

       pdmenurc(5)