3.4. Using Menus
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### 3.4. Using Menus

Menus provide access to commands you use to manage windows and operate software applications.

Choosing a menu item performs an associated action on the currently selected object. For example, when you select a window and choose Iconify from its Window menu, the window becomes an icon.

Not all menu options are available at any time and under all circumstances. Where the action doesn't make a sense, action will be absent from the menu. In CDE, option is displayed as dimmed, but in NsCDE both is the case: some options which FVWM manages can appear dimmed, while other will be complitely missing from the menu.

FVWM menus can be "teared off" and temporary converted into a window. By pressing Backspace while menu popup is active and focused, menu will turn into a simple widow with title bar which will contain internal menu name as window name and the title bar menu button on the left side of the title bar.

Menus used by applications include:

- Menus that you "pull down" from an application's menu bar by clicking the menu's name or typing Alt and its mnemonic. A mnemonic is an underlined character in a menu or item name. This has really nothing with NsCDE, but depends on gui toolkit used to build application. Like GTK2, GTK3 or Qt4, Qt5, Qt6 ...

- The same goes for contextual menus that "pop up" when you click mouse button 3 in an application window.

#### 3.4.1. Window Operations Menu

Figure 7. Standard and Extended Window Operations Menu

Use Window menu items to control windows and window icons. This menu is displayed when:

- Window menu button on window's title bar in the upper left corner of a window is clicked

- When Window Icon is clicked - Altrough Icon Operation Menu is somewhat different and shorter

- Press Meta+Alt+M with the keyboard focus on a window

Reposition - Places Window Again on the desktop as if it is just newly opened, or resizes and places it according to rules in `$FVWM_USERDIR/GeoDB.ini` written by Geometry Manager.

Refresh - Causes the window to redraw itself.

Move - Changes the window's location

Size - Changes the size of the window (absent on icons)

Iconify - Turns the window into an icon

Deiconify - Turns the window into an icon

Shade - Rollw window up to the height of just it's title bar, an alternative to iconify

Grow - Maximizes window avoiding EWMH working area and other windows

Stretch - Maximizes window avoiding EWMH working area

Maximize - Maximizes window ignoring EWMH working area

Restore - Puts window in non-maximized non-iconified state

Lower / Raise - Puts window back behind some other window, or raises it in front, putting other window into background

Occupy Workspace - Used to select the workspace in which we want the window to appear

Occupy Page - Used to select the page of workspace in which we want the window to appear

Occupy Monitor - Used to put window on the other XRandR monitors

Occupy All - Make window sticky (visible) across all workspaces and pages

Extended Menu / Standard Menu - extend or shrink Window Operations Menu to show or hide less used functions

Window Layers - submenu with "top" "put" and "bottom" X11 window layer choices Rarely used interactive. (extended menu)

Identify - call FvwmIdent dialog with the current window information (extended menu)

Save Geometry - starts Geometry Manager (extended menu)

Title Bar On/Off - hides and restores window's title bar (extended menu)

Center Window - centers the window on the center of the screen (extended menu)

Full Screen - puts the window into full screen mode (extended menu)

Close - Closes the window, removing it from the workspace

Forcefully Close - Forcefully closes troublesome window, removing it from the workspace

Custom - Terminal emulator, File Manager ... many of the programs, or types of the programs may have additional option on the Window Operations Menu which is unique to that application (or a group of the applications). Customizable by the user.

#### 3.4.2. Title Bar (M2) Menu

Figure 8. Window Titlebar M2 Menu

This menu contains diagnostic and screenshot options. It can be invoked with mouse 2 click on the window's title bar. It contains the following functions:

Identify Window - call FvwmIdent dialog with the current window information

X Window Info - run xwininfo(1) on the window, display information in the terminal window

X Window Property Display - run xprop(1) on the window, display information in terminal window

Screenshot (With WM decorations) - take a screenshot of the current window with all borders, corners, titlebar and the buttons. Picture in PNG format will be saved in user's `XDG_PICTURES_DIR` if defined by XDG subsystem (usually `$HOME/Pictures`), or if this is not defined or possible, into user's `$HOME`. File name will be in the form "ScreenShot.<window name>.<X11 Window ID>.YYMMDD.HHMMSS.png".

Screenshot (Without WM decorations) - take a screenshot of the current window without borders, corners, titlebar and buttons. Only actual application's frame. Picture in PNG format will be saved in user's `XDG_PICTURES_DIR` if defined by XDG subsystem (usually `$HOME/Pictures`), or if this is not defined or possible, into user's `$HOME`. File name will be in the form "ScreenShot.<window name>.<X11 Window ID>.YYMMDD.HHMMSS.png".

Screenshot to Clipboard (With WM decorations) - take a screenshot of the current window with all borders, corners, titlebar and the buttons. The result will not be saved automatically into `XDG_PICTURES_DIR`, but copied into system's clipboard, from where it can be pasted into compatible applications.

Screenshot to Clipboard (Without WM decorations) - take a screenshot of the current window without borders, corners, titlebar and the buttons. Just an application frame. The result will not be saved automatically into `XDG_PICTURES_DIR`, but copied into system's clipboard, from where it can be pasted into compatible applications.

#### 3.4.3. Window List

Window List menu contains a list of currently running and present applications on the current and all other workspaces. Every workspace on this menu has it's own title (name of the workspace) and below the title list of applications with their mini icons left of the text which describes application window name.

Figure 9. Window List Menu

Window List menu can be called with mouse in a two ways:

- By clicking on the screen backdrop with mouse button 2

- By clicking on the screen backdrop with mouse button 2 while holding Ctrl modifier: this will bring up detailed informative Window List with window geometry information.

- By pressing key binding Ctrl+Escape once for Window List of the current menu, then second Escape while Window List is active to get full list of all applications on all workspaces, and the third Escape will popdown and dismiss the Window List.

#### 3.4.4. Detached Standalone Window Operations menu

Double click on the root window (backdrop) will popup extended version of the Window Operations Menu. This menu does not have a window context, so any action choosen on this menu will turn pointer cursor into a cross symbol, waiting for the user to pick some window or element on the screen for processing. This can be useful with non-standard windows without title bar, docks, hardly accessible elements etc.

##### 3.4.4.1. Screenshot submenu

Detached Standalone Window Operations menu contains Screenshot Options submenu. This submenu offers 4 methods to save the whole active workspace/page or selected part of it.

- Screenshot (3s delay): Take a screenshot 3 seconds after clicked. This leaves enough time to the user to hide menu, and set the focus to have best possible screenshot. Picture in PNG format will be saved in user's `XDG_PICTURES_DIR` if defined by XDG subsystem (usually `$HOME/Pictures`), or if this is not defined or possible, into user's `$HOME`. File name will be in the form "RootWinShot.YYMMDD.HHMMSS.png".

- Selected Area Screenshot: Mouse pointer will turn into a cross symbol, expecting user to select part of the screen as rectangle. This area will be saved as PNG picture file in user's `XDG_PICTURES_DIR` if defined by XDG subsystem (usually `$HOME/Pictures`), or if this is not defined or possible, into user's `$HOME`. File name will be in the form "ScreenAreaShot.WSP_<workspace name>.YYMMDD.HHMMSS.png".

- Screenshot to Clipbpard (3s delay): similar as the plain whole screen screenshot, the result will not get saved automatically into `XDG_PICTURES_DIR`, but copied into system's clipboard, from where it can be pasted into compatible applications.

- Selected Area Screenshot to Clipbpard: similar as the plain screen area screenshot above, the result will not get saved automatically into `XDG_PICTURES_DIR`, but copied into system's clipboard, from where it can be pasted into compatible applications.

#### 3.4.5. Root Menu

Root Menu can be obtained only with a click-and-move gesture on the root window (backdrop). This menu contains entries which are calling:

Graphical Workspace Manager GWM

Local Pager (showing only the current workspace and it's pages if enabled)

Local Window List (obtained also with Ctrl+Escape)

Global Window List (obtained also with Ctrl+Escape+Escape)

Window Operations entry which opens Standalone Window Operations as submenu

Refresh All Windows - this will refresh all windows

Figure 10. Root Menu

Clean/Restore WorkspaceThis will iconify all visible windows on a screen, rolldown and shade front panel into thin border which. Calling this function again will deiconify windows on the screen, but only those which were iconified by this function and restore Front Panel in it's default width, height and position. Notice that Front Panel can be rolled down and restored also with the Shift+Backspace+Backspace.

#### 3.4.6. Workspace Menu

The Workspace menu is a pop-up menu that contains items for managing the workspace. To display the Workspace menu, click mouse button 3 on the workspace backdrop. Menu can also be called by pressing Menu button on the keyboard twice in less than a second.

Figure 11. Workspace Menu

##### 3.4.6.1. Applications Submenu

This important submenu is located on the Workspace Menu as a first entry from the above on it. You can start many of the applications listed in the Applications submenu by clicking their Front Panel icons or subpanels. Howerver, practically all GUI applications installed on the system, that is, which have and ".desktop" entry in `/usr/share/applications` or `/usr/local/share/applications` or someware else will be find in this submenu, grouped in categories. Clicking their menu item starts the application. Number and kind of applications on this menu varies depending what is installed on the system and on the system itself.

##### 3.4.6.2. Quick Menu

This submenu is located on the Workspace Menu as a second entry from the above on it. This submenu is meant to be customized by the user in `$FVWM_USERDIR/Menus.fvwmlocal`. Menu m_QuickMenu is FVWM menu definition which has to be edited. Here, user can put often used, important, or any other items for quick locating them while operating on the Workspace Menu.

##### 3.4.6.3. NsCDE Help menu

This submenu is located on the Workspace Menu as a third entry from the above on it. This menu offers access to the most important topics of the NsCDE manual in HTML and PDF form.

#### 3.4.7. Further information about menus in NsCDE

More information and techical details about implementation of FVWM menus in NsCDE can be found in the section about `Menus.fvwmconf` configuration file.

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