Fly-Pie has a D-Bus interface which allows not only to open configured menus via the command line, but also to open completely custom-made menus defined with a JSON string.
To see all available methods and signals you can introspect the interface:
gdbus introspect --session --dest org.gnome.Shell \
--object-path /org/gnome/shell/extensions/flypieUse the following command to open a menu you configured with the Fly-Pie's Menu Editor.
You just have to replace the only parameter Main Menu with the name of your desired menu!
gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/gnome/shell/extensions/flypie \
--method org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.flypie.ShowMenu 'Main Menu'There is also a similar method called PreviewMenu which will open the given menu in preview mode.
gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/gnome/shell/extensions/flypie \
--method org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.flypie.PreviewMenu 'Main Menu'You can pass a JSON menu configuration to the ShowCustomMenu to show a custom menu.
Here is an example showing a menu with two elements.
Selecting them will change your workspace up or down (by simulating a Ctrl+Alt+Up
or a Ctrl+Alt+Down respectively).
Further below you will find a complete description of this JSON menu configuration format.
gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell \
--object-path /org/gnome/shell/extensions/flypie \
--method org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.flypie.ShowCustomMenu \
'{ \
"icon": "💠️", \
"children": [ \
{ \
"name": "Up", \
"icon": "🔼️", \
"type": "Shortcut", \
"data": { \
"shortcut": "<Primary><Alt>Up" \
} \
}, \
{ \
"name": "Down", \
"icon": "🔽️", \
"type": "Shortcut", \
"data": { \
"shortcut": "<Primary><Alt>Down" \
} \
} \
] \
}'ℹ️ Pro-Tip: You can export your menu configuration from the menu editor of Fly-Pie's settings dialog. The exported JSON file contains an array of menu configurations which follow the specification below. This way you can use the menu editor to design a menu which you want to open dynamically over the D-Bus!
Each item in the menu hierarchy can have the following properties. All of them are optional, the default values are noted in the description, Some of them are only available for top-level menu items; this is noted in the table as well.
| Parameters | Value Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
name |
A string. | This will be shown in the center when the item is hovered. If omitted, it will be set based on the given type. |
icon |
An absolute image file path, an icon name or arbitrary text. | Icon names like firefox are commonly used. As text is an option too, you can use emoji like 🚀 for the icons! If omitted, it will be set based on the given type. |
type |
A string from the table below. | Some types require setting the additional data property. For items with children this defaults to "CustomMenu", for leaf items this defaults to "DBusSignal". |
data |
Additional data required for the type. |
See the table below for details. The default value depends on the given type. |
angle |
A number from 0 - 359. | This forces the item to be placed in a specific direction. However, there is a restriction on the fixed angles. Inside a menu level, the fixed angles must be monotonically increasing, that is each fixed angle must be larger than any previous fixed angle. |
centered |
A boolean only for top-level items. | When set to true, the menu will be shown in the middle of the screen, else it will be shown at the mouse pointer. If omitted, this defaults to false. |
children |
An array of child items. | This can only be set for the "type": "CustomMenu". No data is required. |
The table below lists all possible item types. Some of the types require that the data property is set to some value.
| Actions | Default data |
Description |
|---|---|---|
"Command" |
{"command":""} |
This action executes a command given in data. This is primarily used to open applications but may have plenty of other use cases as well. |
"DBusSignal" |
{"id":""} |
This action does nothing on its own. But you can listen on the D-Bus for its activation. This can be very useful in custom menus opened via the command line. The ID string given in data will be passed as itemID to the OnHover, OnUnhover and OnSelect signals. Below this table you will find an example! |
"File" |
{"file":""} |
This action will open a file given with an absolute path in data with your system's default application. |
"InsertText" |
{"text":""} |
This action copies the text given in data to the clipboard and then simulates a Ctrl+V. This can be useful if you realize that you often write the same things. |
"Shortcut" |
{"shortcut":""} |
This action simulates a key combination when activated. For example, this can be used to switch virtual desktops, control multimedia playback or to undo / redo operations. data should be something like {"shortcut":"<Primary>space"}. |
"Uri" |
{"uri":""} |
When this action is activated, the URI given in data is opened with the default application. For http URLs, this will be your web browser. However, it is also possible to open other URIs such as {"uri":"mailto:foo@bar.org"}. |
| Menus | ||
"CustomMenu" |
not used | Use the "children" property to add as many actions or submenus as you want! |
"Bookmarks" |
not used | This menu shows an item for the trash, your desktop and each bookmarked directory. |
"Devices" |
not used | This menu shows an item for each mounted volume, like USB-Sticks. |
"Favorites" |
not used | This menu shows the applications you have pinned to GNOME Shell's Dash. |
"FrequentlyUsed" |
{"maxNum":7} |
This menu shows a list of frequently used applications. You should limit the maximum number of shown applications to a reasonable number given in data. |
"MainMenu" |
not used | This menu shows all installed applications. Usually, this is very cluttered as many sections contain too many items to be used efficiently. You should rather setup your own menus! This menu is only available if the typelib for GMenu is installed on the system. Usually the package is called something like gir1.2-gmenu-3.0. |
"RecentFiles" |
{"maxNum":7} |
This menu shows a list of recently used files. You should limit the maximum number of shown files to a reasonable number given in data. |
"RunningApps" |
not used | This menu shows all currently running applications. This is similar to the Alt+Tab window selection. As the entries change position frequently, this is actually not very effective. |
"System" |
not used | This menu shows an items for screen-lock, shutdown, settings, etc. |
The ShowMenu methods will return an integer.
This will be either negative (Fly-Pie failed to parse the provided description, see DBusInterface.js
for a list of error codes) or a positive menu ID which will be passed to the signals of the interface.
If an error occurred, there is a good chance that Fly-Pie logged an error message. To see them use this command in another terminal:
journalctl -f -o cat | grep -E 'flypie|'If you want to make menu items perform actions which are not available in Fly-Pie,
you can use the "DBusSignal" item type and wait for their selection on the D-Bus.
There are four signals; OnCancel will be fired when the user aborts the selection in a menu,
OnSelect is activated when the user makes a selection
and OnHover and OnUnhover are called whenever an action begins or stops being hovered in point-and-click mode or dragged around in marking mode.
All signals send the menu ID which has been reported by the corresponding ShowMenu call,
in addition, OnSelect, OnHover, and OnUnhover send the item ID of the selected item.
The item ID will usually be a path in the form of "/1/0".
This example would mean that the first child of the second child of the root menu was selected (indices are zero-based).
In the simple menu example below, selecting Apatosaurus will yield "/1/0".
If you assigned a data property to some of your "type": "DBusSignal" items,
this will be returned instead of the path (like the cat!! in the example below).
ℹ️ Hint: Note that no "type" is given in the example because
"CustomMenu" is the default value if an item contains children and "DBusSignal" is the default value for leaf items.
gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell \
--object-path /org/gnome/shell/extensions/flypie \
--method org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.flypie.ShowCustomMenu \
'{ \
"icon": "😷️", \
"children": [ \
{ \
"name": "Rocket", \
"icon":"🚀" \
}, \
{ \
"name": "Doughnut", \
"icon":"🍩", \
"children": [ \
{ \
"name": "Apatosaurus", \
"icon":"🦕" \
}, \
{ \
"name": "Cat", \
"icon":"🐈", \
"data": {"id": "cat!!"} \
} \
] \
} \
]}'You can use the following command to monitor the emitted signals:
gdbus monitor --session --dest org.gnome.Shell \
--object-path /org/gnome/shell/extensions/flypieThere is also a SelectItem method exposed, which you can use to select an item in a currently opened menu.
As a parameter, this method expects a /-delimited path to the menu item where each element of the path is the to-be-selected item's index.
For instance, you can open a menu in preview mode like this:
gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/gnome/shell/extensions/flypie \
--method org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.flypie.PreviewMenu 'Main Menu'Once this is visible, you can select the first item (usually at the top) with the following command:
gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/gnome/shell/extensions/flypie \
--method org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.flypie.SelectItem '/0'The path / selects the root item, /0/1 would select the second child of the first child of the root item.
You can use the SelectItem right after a menu is shown to preselect this item.
The following command will open the top item of the "Main Menu" selected and centered at the pointer.
This will only work if your "Main Menu" has custom menu at the top position!
Else it will be executed right away...
gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/gnome/shell/extensions/flypie \
--method org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.flypie.ShowMenu 'Main Menu' && \
gdbus call --session --dest org.gnome.Shell --object-path /org/gnome/shell/extensions/flypie \
--method org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.flypie.SelectItem '/0'
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