Display dmenu inside i3bar, ideas?

asked Sep 16 '12

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Hello everybody,

scanf here with another question. So, I thought it would be cool to have dmenu display its text inside i3bar, instead of in a separate window (the stripe that comes up on top, I'm guessing that is an X window). I thought about it for a while, but found no obvious solution.

This is the "best" idea I has thus far:

Bind $mod+d to enter dmenu_mode.
In this mode, key presses write to a file, how I need to figure out yet (I would avoid binding every character key to a command).
Meanwhile, a program which more or less replicates dmenu reads that file and produces a dmenu-like output, which is sent to i3bar.
When the enter key is pressed, a special character is printed to the file, which signals the dmenu-like program to executes whatever it needs and clear the file. Pressing enter also makes us leave dmenu_mode.

First: any simpler solutions? Second: could it work?

Thanks in advance, Scanf

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It is just for the visual effect. My convoluted approach was to avoid the dmenu window covering i3bar, which is again only for visual reasons. I have too much time on my hands... Anyway. I think I'll do as you suggest and try to constrain the dmenu window into the unused space of i3bar. Thanks