dmenu-mac Files

Search shortcuts, aliases, usage-based ranking, and a short setup on first launch.

Added

• First-run setup that walks through the hotkey (and the Spotlight conflict), launch at login and terminal programs, and can ask for Automation access to Terminal or iTerm2 up front. Enter continues, Esc skips, and Run Setup Again… in the menu bar reopens it. Existing installs and launches from a shell skip it.
• Search shortcuts: type a keyword, a space and a query, such as g swift actors, to search Google, DuckDuckGo, GitHub, YouTube or Wikipedia, ask Claude, ChatGPT or Perplexity, or start Claude Code (cc) or Codex (cx) in your terminal. Edit them in Settings → Shortcuts.
• Aliases: give any item a short keyword in Settings → Aliases, like ff for Firefox. Typing it puts that item first.
• Results are ranked by how often and recently you opened them, and the ones you use most come first before you type anything.
• ⌘ Enter reveals the selected item in Finder, ⌥ Enter copies its path, and ⌃ Enter opens a new instance of the app.
• Pick the screen the bar appears on in Settings → Appearance: the one with the active window, the one with the mouse pointer, or the primary screen. -m/--monitor <n> picks a screen for a single run.
• Show icons in Settings → Appearance shows app and System Settings icons next to results. Off by default.
• Available in nixpkgs: nix profile install nixpkgs#dmenu-mac, or pkgs.dmenu-mac in nix-darwin and home-manager.

Changed

• Launch at Login moved from the menu bar icon to Settings → General.
• While Setup or Settings is open, dmenu-mac shows in the Dock and the app switcher, so a window that went behind others can be found again. Closing it hands focus back to the app you were in.
• The bar spans the full width of its screen and stays clear of the menu bar and the Dock on every display, including with the Dock on the side.

What's Changed

• Document that Homebrew bumps the cask on its own by @oNaiPs in https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/pull/85
• Move Launch at Login to Settings by @oNaiPs in https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/pull/86
• Let the user choose which screen the bar appears on by @oNaiPs in https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/pull/88
• Alternate actions on the selected result with modifier keys by @oNaiPs in https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/pull/89
• Rank results by usage (frecency) by @oNaiPs in https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/pull/87
• Show app icons in the results bar by @oNaiPs in https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/pull/92
• Add web search keyword shortcuts by @oNaiPs in https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/pull/91
• Add user-defined aliases by @oNaiPs in https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/pull/90
• Add a first-run setup wizard by @oNaiPs in https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/pull/93
• Keep appearance tests out of the user's real defaults by @oNaiPs in https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/pull/94
• Add 0.9.0 to the changelog and document Nix by @oNaiPs in https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/pull/95

Full Changelog: https://github.com/oNaiPs/dmenu-mac/compare/0.8.0...0.9.0