Re: [dev] [st][general] replace dmenu and other X tools by st

From: Ciprian Dorin Craciun <ciprian.craciun_AT_gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2020 15:05:41 +0200

On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 10:53 AM Tobias Bengfort
<tobias.bengfort_AT_posteo.de> wrote:
> I am surely not the first to come up with this[1], but I think many X
> tools could be replaced by TUIs running in st. Think about this quick
> example (dmenu replacement):


I myself pondered the same thing some while ago, however I didn't
proceed onto experimentation, mainly because I use `rofi` which (like
`dmenu`) has some other advantages that `st` doesn't like for example
window placement relative to currently active monitor, etc.

However another disadvantage of `st` + `fzf` as a replacement for
`dmenu` / `rofi` / etc. is perhaps performance.

For example I've tested the following (`heredoc` is part of the
`execline` suite, it is used as a `bash` replacement in your snippet,
and I use it both for `dmenu` and `rofi` in order to keep the
comparison fair):

````
time st heredoc 0 $'a\nb\nc\n' fzf
time heredoc 0 $'a\nb\nc\n' dmenu -l 10
time heredoc 0 $'a\nb\nc\n' rofi -dmenu
````

And the following is the `user` and `sys` timing for these:
* for `dmenu` around 20ms + 5ms;
* for `rofi` around 35ms + 10ms;
* for `st` + `fzf` around 50ms + 20ms;

Although even `st` + `fzf` feels snappy enough, I did feel some lag
compared to the other.




> The interesting thing about this is that you replace all the complexity
> of X (e.g. font rendering) with all the complexities of the terminal
> (e.g. ANSI escape codes).


I don't think this would be a major issue. In fact I think more
simple applications might sprout that would reuse `st` as a "display
server".




> I believe there could be changes to st that would make this kind of
> usage simpler, e.g. an option for full-width or to automatically attach
> stdin/stdout to the command (fzf in this case).


Yup. As mentioned earlier, `rofi` and `dmenu` have some advantages in
the window placement area that are essential.

However I believe this would quickly become out-of-scope from `st`...

Ciprian.
Received on Fri Mar 13 2020 - 14:05:41 CET