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Docs \ Customizing \ Menu Bar

The Menu Bar

The menus are built in, and ~/.config/gemwm/menu changes them. You only write what you want to change: a section replaces the built-in menu with the same name, and every other menu stays as it is.

The Desk menu, with its Internet submenu

# Replace the Internet submenu under Desk
[Desk > Internet]
Web Browser = chromium
Mail = foot -e aerc
Chat >
-
Downloads = foot -e yazi ~/Downloads

# A submenu inside a submenu
[Desk > Internet > Chat]
IRC = foot -e weechat

# An empty section hides a menu
[View]
  • [Title] is a menu in the bar; a new title adds a menu.
  • [Title > Sub] is a submenu, added at the end of Title unless Title has a Sub > line saying where it goes.
  • Label = command runs the command with /bin/sh -c.
  • Label alone is a disabled (grey) item.
  • - is a separator.

The defaults are the TOS 1.0 desktop menus, plus working items under Desk: Internet > Web Browser opens GemWeb (or your default browser if GemWeb isn’t installed), Internet > GemMail, Office > GemWrite, Tools > Terminal ($TERMINAL, foot if unset), Tools > Printing, Tools > Notifications and Games > Crossword Puzzle.

The menu bar reads its config at startup; restart it with:

pkill gemwm-menu; setsid gemwm-menu &

Applications’ menus

As in GEM, the menu bar belongs to what’s in front. With a window focused, it shows Desk, a menu named after the window’s application (from its .desktop file) with Close Window, Full Size and Move to Workspace, and Options. GemWM’s own applications add their menus after it: GemWeb’s File, View and Go, say. Any application can do the same, with a Wayland protocol: see for app developers.

Everything at the right of the bar is a menu app: a small program with an item there. They’re listed in the same file, under [Menu Apps], left to right. As with menus, your section replaces the built-in one (so list the ones you want to keep), and an empty section removes them all. The defaults:

[Menu Apps]
Printing = exec gemwm-printing --menu-app
Wi-Fi = exec gemwm-wifi --menu-app
Bluetooth = exec gemwm-bluetooth --menu-app
Volume = exec gemwm-volume --menu-app
Battery = exec gemwm-battery
Clock = exec gemwm-clock          # --12h or --24h, --seconds

A menu app is easy to write, and a shell script is enough: see writing menu apps.

The clock and battery take settings from ~/.config/gemwm/config too:

[clock]
mode = 24h                # 12h, or off; click the clock to switch
seconds = no

[battery]
mode = on                 # or off; hidden anyway without a battery