Increase font size of dmenu / j4-dmenu

asked Jul 13 '14

alex
3 ●2 ●2 ●3

Hi,

I can't find a way to increase the font size of the application launcher menu (dmenu / j4-dmenu).

Is there way to do that?

Cheers, Alex

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answered Jul 13 '14

ANOKNUSA
536 ●3 ●11 ●20

updated Jul 13 '14

I'm not familiar with j4-dmenu, but the font size of dmenu itself is dictated by the '-fn' flag used when it's launched. i3-dmenu-desktop is a nice convenience, but that's really all it is---the only thing that makes it different from plain old dmenu is that it specifically searches for *.desktop files rather than all executable files in $PATH. You simply need to edit the part of i3-dmenu-desktop/j4-dmenu that calls dmenu and add the '-fn' flag to your taste. Personally, I've just tied dmenu_run to a keybinding in my config:

bindsym $mod+space exec dmenu_run -i -b -p 'Arch Linux' -fn 'Ubuntu Mono:bold:pixelsize=15' -nb '#fdf6e3' -nf '#586c75' -sf '#fdf6e3' -sb '#b58900'

The dmenu man page has all the information on what those flags do. I'd rather have complete control over how dmenu looks and behaves than a pre-made script that tells me what I want. I'll tell you what I want, dmenu, thank you very much. ;)

Also, note that you'd need to build dmenu yourself with the Xft patch to use TTF fonts; otherwise you'd need to use xfont-style notation to declare the font.

Comments

Thanks for your suggestion. Changing j4-dmenu-desktop's call to dmenu did the trick. I've edited the Main.hh to include the font specification when calling dmenu and it works flawlessly now.

alex (Jul 14 '14)edit

Thanks for this. I was finally able to tune dmenu to my likings. I don't use dmenu very often, but when I do, I do it big :-) bindsym $mod+d exec dmenu_run -i -l 23 -p 'gogo Gadget' -fn 'Source Code Pro for Powerline:bold:pixelsize=32' -nb '#222222' -nf '#ceecee' -sb '#f8f893' -sf '#222222'

cee (Jul 14 '14)edit

I already noticed that in Ubuntu 14.04 there's an alternative dmenu executable (dmenu.xft) with the patch already compiled. Can be selected via: sudo update-alternatives --config dmenu

Ruben G (Feb 25 '15)edit

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answered Jul 13 '14

tigrezno
111 ●8 ●12 ●22

Use the "-fn" option for setting the font, for example:

dmenu_run -fn '--fixed-bold-r-normal--15-----*-iso10646-1'

Comments

Thanks. As stated above I added this to the dmenu call in the Main.hh of j4-dmenu-desktop and it works fine after recompiling. Unfortunately I can only select one answer as the correct one.

alex (Jul 14 '14)edit

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answered May 1 '15