dmenu top bar in xmonad runs some items (Chromium), but not ranger or others

Question

I have a "stock" xmonad install on Arch.

No changes to my xmonad.hs yet

I have installed dmenu.

It runs by alt-p, the default, and displays and filters as expected.

Chromium runs, but other items, like ranger, alsamixer or other tasks do not.

I am not finding anything anywhere about anyone having to do anything to get these items to run, nor anyone having any issues with doing so.

Surely, then, there is something wrong in my install.

my dmenu_run is as follows:

#!/bin/sh
dmenu_path | dmenu "$@" | ${SHELL:-"/bin/sh"} &

I would normally run terminology with bash or zsh. I have tried to alter the SHELL to /bin/bash, but to no avail.

Is there any other place I must look or items I should alter?

Such a shame as I am really liking xmonad so far, and want to get dmenu working before I start exploring xmonad.hs...

Thanks in advance

UPDATE: I have found the following here over at Archwiki that involves changing dmenu_run and adding a .demenu_term in one's home. It seems to work, but still wonder if there was a more orthadox mechanism.

Answer 1

ranger and alsamixer are applications which run inside a terminal. Imagine (or try) to run ls via dmenu, where should the directory listing be printed to without a terminal?

You look for functionality which is provided either by prompt imported from XMonad.Prompt.Shell by using a convinient keybinding like

((modm .|. shiftMask, xK_c), prompt ("xterm" ++ " -e") greenXPConfig)

(described in the linked documentation) or shellPrompt where you execute

xterm -e alsamixer

or any other command, e.g.

feh path/to/image/you/want/to/open/now.jpg

instead of opening a terminal, running above with tailing & and exiting the terminal.