Trying to patch dmenu

[niknik1971]

I am trying to patch dmenu. I watched a youtube video, which made it seem fairly easy. When in terminal though it is not patching… it is asking me what files to patch (in the video it does not ask what files to patch). As a newbe for this sort of thing I am stumped. Any help would be great.

[vlkon]

All it states is that it

"can't find file to patch at input line 15"

And after that the line 15 is

|+++ b/config.def.h

So my assumption is that you are missing file b/config.def.h

[niknik1971]

Is there a fix for that?

Or I am I just not going to be able to patch dmenu?

[joekamprad]

would need some more details to see what is wrong…
a patch can be done in many different ways… you can also specify that file to match on the command:
patch -u "b/config.def.h" -i "dmenu***.diff"
and path could be different if you are not in the same folder p.e. b/

[Zircon34]

Did the video install dmenu suckless or via pacman?

Since you are in the i3wm section I assume you installed dmenu via pacman. Perhaps you should try suckless to understand where the folders and files are for patching.

https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/

How to Install, Customize and Backup Suckless Tools

I only dabbled in suckless and dwm, but might be worth having a look at DTs article, he also has yt videos

[andrewb]

If you aren’t a developer, merging patches may not always go well.

There is a developer who has applied most of the suckless patches to their more popular projects. You can edit a text file to include what patches you want, build, and then try it out. Most of the patches are suckless; a few his own.

Search the web for a github project called dmenu-flexipatch from bakkeby. Clone it, and explore.

[niknik1971]

Bravo to you sir. Just patched dmenu and I am feeling happy and smug. It was sooooo easy to do. Once again thank you soooo much.

[Kresimir]

If you’re going to use suckless software, you owe yourself to learn at least some C programming, even at a rudimentary level, so that you can edit the source code to your liking. The whole point of suckless software is that you customise and confiture it by editing the source code. There’s little point to it if you do not understand that source code.