radical/README.md

Radical menu system for AwesomeWM

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This is Radical, one of the largest Awesome extension module. It provide un unified interface to generate multiple types of menus.

Installation

Installing Radical is simple, just move to ~/.config/awesome and clone the repository

cd ~/.config/awesome
git clone https://github.com/Elv13/radical.git

The require it at the top of your rc.lua:

    local radical = require("radical")

Usage

Unlike awful.menu, radical act like other Awesome 3.5 layouts. You need to add items one by one. This have the benefit of letting you interact with the items themselves programatically.

The most simple kind of menus, contexts one, can be created like this:

    local menu = radical.context({})
    menu:add_item({text="Screen 1",button1=function() print("Hello World! ") end})
    menu:add_item({text="Screen 9",icon=beautiful.path.."Icon/layouts/tileleft.png"})
    menu:add_item({text="Sub Menu",sub_menu = function()
        local smenu = radical.context({})
        smenu:add_item({text="item 1"})
        smenu:add_item({text="item 2"})
        return smenu
    end})
    
    -- To add the menu to a widget:
    local mytextbox = wibox.widget.textbox()
    mytextbox:set_menu(menu,3) -- 3 = right mouse button, 1 = left mouse button
    
    -- To add a key binding on a "box" menu (and every other types)
    menu:add_key_binding({"Mod4"},",")

In this example, a simple 3 item menu is created with a dynamically generated submenu. Please note that generating submenus using function will generate it every time it is being shown. For static menus, it is faster to simply create them once and passing the submenu object to the "sub_menu" item property.

:set_menu can also take a lazy-loading function instead of a menu. The second parameter is not mandatory, the default is 1.

:add_key_binding will add a key binding. It can also take a function as 3rd parameter. However, it wont correctly place "context" menu as it have no idea where you expect them. It work better with "box" menus.

Menu types

The current valid types are:

• Context: Regular context menu
• Box: Centered menus (think Windows alt-tab menu)
• Embed: Menus in menus. This can be used as subsections in large menus

Menu style

Each menus come in various styles for various applications. New style can also be created by beautiful themes. The current ones are:

• Arrow: Gnome3 and Mac OSX like menus with border radius and an arrow
• Classic: Replicate awful.menu look

Arrow also have a few types:

• radical.base.arrow_type.NONE
• radical.base.arrow_type.PRETTY
• radical.base.arrow_type.CENTERED

Item style

Like menus, items can have their own style. Valid values:

• Basic: The most simple kind of items, no borders or special shape
• Classic: 1px border at the end of each items
• Rounded: A 3px border radius at each corner

Menu layouts

On top of each styles, menu can also have different layouts to display items:

• Vertical: Items are displayed on top of each other
• Horizontal: Items are displayed alongside each other
• Grid: Items are displayed as a 2D array

Using styles and layouts

    local radical = require("radical")
    
    local m = radical.context({
        style      = radical.style.classic      ,
        item_style = radical.item_style.classic ,
        layout     = radical.layout.vertical    })
    

Tooltip

Radical also have its own styled tooltip widget. It can be used in menus, but also in every widgets using the set_tooltip method:

local mytextbox = wibox.widget.textbox()
mytextbox:set_tooltip("foo bar")

Options

Radical offer a (very, very) wide range of options to allow the creation of rich and novel menus. The options are available in 2 formats: menu wide and item specific. Menu wide options will take effect on all items and on the way the menu itself is being displayed while items ones apply only to a specific item. Multiple items can have multiple sets of options.

Menu options

Name	Description	Type
bg	Background color	String/gradient/pattern
fg	Foreground (text) color	String/gradient/pattern
bg_focus	Background of focussed items	String/gradient/pattern
fg_focus	Foreground of focussed items	String/gradient/pattern
bg_alternate	Alternate background color	String/gradient/pattern
bg_highlight	Highlight background color	String/gradient/pattern
bg_header	Header (see widgets section) color	String/gradient/pattern
border_color	Border color	String/gradient/pattern
border_width	Border width	number
item_height	Default height of items	number
item_width	Default width of items	number
width	Original width	number
default_width	Default menu width	number
icon_size	Icon size	number
auto_resize	Resize menu if items are too large	boolean
parent_geometry	Set the menu parent	geometry array
arrow_type	Set the arrow type when use arrow style	see "arrow_type" enum
visible	Show or hide the menu	boolean
direction	The direction from which the arrow will point	"left","right","top","bottom"
row	Number of row (in grid layout)	number
column	Number of columns (in grid layout)	number
layout	The menu layout (default:vertical)	see "Menu layouts" section
style	The menu style (default:arrow)	see "Menu style"
item_style	The item style (default:basic)	see "Item style"
filter	Filter the menu when the user type	boolean
show_filter	Show a filter widget at the bottom	boolean
filter_string	Default filter string	string
fkeys_prefix	Display F1-F12 indicators for easy navigation	boolean
underlay_alpha	Underlay (see item options) opacity	0-1
filter_prefix	Text to be shown at begenning of the filter string	string
max_items	Maximum number of items before showing scrollbar	number
enable_keyboard	Enable or disable keyboard navigation / hooks	boolean
disable_markup	Disable pango markup in items text	boolean
x	X position (absolute)	number
y	Y position (absolute)	number
sub_menu_on	Show submenu on selection or when clicking	see "sub_menu_on" enum

###Item options

Name	Description	Type
text	The item text	string
height	The item height	number
icon	The item icon	string or pattern
bg	See menu options	see menu options
fg	See menu options	see menu options
fg_focus	See menu options	see menu options
bg_focus	See menu options	see menu options
sub_menu	Add a submenu to this item	menu or function
selected	Select this item	boolean
checkable	Is the item dual state (a checkbox)	boolean
checked	Is the item checked or not	boolean
underlay	Text to render at the far-right of the item	string
prefix_widget	Widget to append at the begenning of the item	widget
suffix_widget	Widget to append at the end of the item	widget
tooltip	A tooltip shown on the side or bottom	string
button1	Left mouse button action	function
button2	Mid mouse button action	function
button3	Right mouse button action	function
button4	Scroll up action	function
button5	Scroll down action	function

###Common methods

All menus provide a bunch of methods. Most of them have been coverred above, but here is the list:

Name	Description	Arguments	Return
add_item	Add new item to a menu	array of options	item
add_widget	Add a new widget instead of an item	a widget, args	---
add_embeded_menu	Add an inline menu to another menu	an "embed" menu	---
add_key_binding	Add a global key binding to a menu	mod array, key	---
add_key_hook	Add a callback when a key is pressed	mod, key, event, func	---
clear	Remove all items	---	---
scroll_down	If the menu is cropped, scroll down	---	---
scroll_up	If the menu is cropped, scroll up	---	---

###Beautiful options

Radical also use the some of the same theme options as awful.menu, plus some:

• menu_height
• menu_width
• menu_border_width
• menu_border_color
• border_width
• border_color
• menu_fg_normal
• menu_bg_focus
• menu_bg_header
• menu_bg_alternate
• menu_bg_normal
• menu_bg_highlight
• menu_submenu_icon
• menu_separator_color
• menu_submenu_icon