fix(menu): #131 — size text menus in ch with a cap, not in % of the monitor

Bernardo saw Recovery ellipsize on a 2560x1440 external, which falsified
the item's model (40% + Inter 11 → "only below 1920"). Real cause: text
menus render through themes/<slug>/rofi.rasi, where boreal + neon-glass
pinned width: 620px (fixed — a wide panel buys nothing) while seven used
40%, and the font is whatever that file says — mostly monospace, far
wider than the Inter that was measured. The modelled combination ships in
no theme.

The insight: a menu must fit its longest label, which is a count of
characters in the THEME's font — so the window must scale with the font,
not the screen. 40% gives a 1366 panel 546px and a 2560 one 1024px for
the same row, and a 14pt mono theme needs ~25% more room than an 11pt one
on both; a percentage cannot see either fact.

Rofi has the right unit (`ch` = width of one digit in the current font)
and `calc( a min b )` to cap it, so every text menu — generated and all
nine whole-swaps — is now `width: calc( 84ch min 65% )`. 84ch fits the
longest row we ship (69 chars) plus icon and padding; the cap is
Bernardo's condition (never sprawl on a low-res panel) and it is
measured, not assumed.

Verified on hardware, not by arithmetic: 84ch = 756px in GeistMono 11 and
924px in JetBrainsMono 14; `calc( 84ch min 300px )` → 300px, so the clamp
really clamps. Screenshots at both ends — the real Recovery menu at 756px
(29% of 2560) with every label complete, and the Acer worst case
reproduced pixel-exactly (888px = 65% of 1366, JetBrainsMono 14) also
complete. Grid views override width per-invocation and are untouched.
checks.rofi-text-width guards the class, proven by pinning boreal back to
620px and watching it fail by name. Acer V3 queued for its own fontconfig.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

agent/BACKLOG.md

@@ -153,64 +153,6 @@ whether Nomarchy holds itself higher — darker label, or a darker accent mix
 for light palettes — and note `tools/check-theme-contrast.py` covers palette
 pairings only, never GTK widget surfaces. `[human]` for the aesthetic call.
 
-### 131. Recovery cost labels truncate on 1366-wide panels
-
-#111 gave Recovery scope-first labels that carry the cost inline — "Desktop
-generation — themes & home config (instant, reversible)" and "System boot
-generation — older NixOS (reboot, then pick in boot menu)". They ellipsize,
-**and the cost hint is exactly the part that gets cut**.
-
-**Observed 2026-07-16 (Bernardo, T14s on a 2560×1440 external), which kills
-this item's original model.** It said `width: 40%` + Inter 11 → truncation only
-below ~1920, "confirm on the Acer". Both halves were wrong, and a wide monitor
-is where he saw it:
-
-- **Width does not track the monitor.** Text menus render through
-  `themes/<slug>/rofi.rasi`, and the whole-swaps disagree: **boreal (his) and
-  neon-glass pin `width: 620px`** — fixed, so a 2560 panel buys exactly nothing
-  — while the other seven use `40%`. (`launcher.rasi`'s 780px is a red herring:
-  it themes `-show drun` only, as its own header says.)
-- **The font is not Inter 11.** A whole-swap's text menus use whatever that
-  file sets: boreal **GeistMono Nerd Font 11**, summer-day/night and kanagawa
-  **JetBrainsMono 14**, nord/lumon/retro-82 13, executive-slate Inter 13. Most
-  are **monospace** — far wider per character than the Inter the item measured.
-  Only the *generated* (non-swap) theme follows `t.fonts.ui`/`size`.
-- So the modelled combination — 40% + Inter 11 — **is shipped by no theme**,
-  and truncation is not an Acer edge case: it is most theme × monitor pairs.
-
-Measured for boreal, matching what he sees (GeistMono 11 ≈ 9.33px/char,
-measured off Kitty at the same font/size; text room ≈ 518px = 620 − 32 window
-padding − 28 element padding − 30 icon − 12 spacing):
-
-| row | chars | px | |
-|---|---|---|---|
-| Desktop generation — themes & home config (instant, reversible) | 63 | 587 | **cut** |
-| System boot generation — older NixOS (reboot, then pick in boot menu) | 69 | 643 | **cut** |
-| Files (BTRFS) — restore files or roll root (password + confirm) | 63 | 587 | **cut** |
-| What changed — the last few generations, side by side | 53 | 494 | fits |
-
-Three of four — "*some* of the submenus", exactly his words.
-
-**The decision this needs (`[human]`-ish), because the cheap fix is a trap.**
-Shortening labels to fit means fitting the *narrowest* combination we ship, and
-that is not boreal: `40%` at 1366 with JetBrainsMono 14 leaves ~444px ≈ **39
-characters** — which cannot hold a scope *and* a cost, so it would gut #111's
-whole design for every user on a big screen. Options, and this is Bernardo's
-call:
-- **(a) Size the picker in `ch`** (rofi supports it) — e.g. `width: 72ch` in
-  every rofi.rasi + the generated theme. The window then scales with the font,
-  so a 14pt mono theme gets a wider window and a label that fits by
-  construction, on any monitor. Fixes the class; costs one line × 9 theme files
-  (the parity tax, same shape as #141).
-- **(b) Keep labels short, move cost to rofi `-mesg`** — one line under the
-  prompt, full width, no per-row budget. Changes #111's "cost travels with the
-  row" premise.
-- (c) Shorten to ~39 chars — cheapest, and the one that quietly loses the
-  information #111 added.
-
-Whatever wins, **#132 stands**: the VM cannot judge this, so it needs a look on
-real hardware (boreal on the dev box is now a positive control — it truncates).
-
 ### 132. VM cannot judge rofi menu geometry
 
 The guest renders the picker with icons at roughly a quarter of `ui.iconSize`

agent/HARDWARE-QUEUE.md

@@ -538,6 +538,13 @@ Everything else below stays open; order is convenience, not a gate.
       computed from the focused monitor now, so this is checking the fallback
       path and the font, not the arithmetic), fully on-screen, none clipped by
       the bar. Dev box (2560×1440) already measured exact.
+- [ ] **#131 menu width on the real narrow panel** — open Menu ▸ Recovery.
+      Pass = every label complete (no ellipsis) and the picker visibly *not*
+      hogging the screen (≤65%, the cap). The geometry was already reproduced
+      pixel-exactly on the dev box (888px + JetBrainsMono 14 = what 65% of 1366
+      produces) and passed, so what is genuinely unproven here is only the
+      Acer's own fontconfig/DPI resolving `ch` the same way — try it under a
+      **JetBrainsMono 14 theme** (summer-day/night, kanagawa), the widest case.
 
 ## Latitude 5310 / 5410 only
 - [ ] **v1 QA batch on-hardware pass** (583708d batch was QEMU-verified) —

agent/JOURNAL.md

@@ -43,9 +43,16 @@ Template:
   so it should hold by construction, which is exactly why it is worth one look.
   #131 is **live on 2560** per Bernardo, so its "only at 1366" model is wrong —
   next up.
-- **Next suggestion:** #131 (recovery labels truncating on a wide panel —
+- **Next suggestion:** #137 (plymouth per-head) or #142 (rebuild-while-docked).
-  observed, so the measurement in that item is what needs re-doing), then #137
+- **Then #131 shipped too (same session):** the remodel found the real cause —
-  (plymouth per-head) or #142 (rebuild-while-docked).
+  text menus are sized in % of the *monitor* while a label is a count of
+  *characters* in the *theme's* font, and the whole-swaps disagreed wildly
+  (620px fixed vs 40%; GeistMono 11 vs JetBrainsMono 14). Fixed with rofi's own
+  `ch` unit + a `min` cap: `width: calc( 84ch min 65% )` everywhere. Bernardo's
+  condition ("not ugly on a low-res monitor") is what the cap is for, and it is
+  measured, not hoped: 84ch = 756px/924px by font, `min 300px` → 300px. V3 by
+  screenshot at both ends, incl. the Acer's exact geometry reproduced on the dev
+  box. `checks.rofi-text-width` guards it.
 
 ## 2026-07-16 — #138 dock audio: the graph restart was the bug (44aac0f + this)
 - **Task:** #138 — Meet "no mic or speakers" in Chromium; Zoom fine; no repro

docs/ROADMAP.md

@@ -449,6 +449,34 @@ Design/decision records and a running log of shipped work (items marked
   (#131). Those windows therefore carry float/center rules and deliberately no
   `size` rule. Measured after: calendar 1536×936 = exactly 60%×65%, doctor
   1408×1008 = 55%×70%, both centred in the Waybar work area.
+- ✓ **Menus are sized in `ch`, not in % of the monitor (#131, 2026-07-16):**
+  Bernardo saw Recovery's labels ellipsize **on a 2560×1440 external** — which
+  falsified the item's own model ("`width: 40%` + Inter 11 → only below ~1920;
+  confirm on the Acer"). Two wrong assumptions, and the diagnosis is the
+  interesting part: text menus render through `themes/<slug>/rofi.rasi`, where
+  **boreal and neon-glass pinned `width: 620px`** — fixed, so a wide panel buys
+  nothing — while the other seven used `40%`; and the font is whatever that file
+  says (boreal GeistMono 11, summer/kanagawa JetBrainsMono 14, …), mostly
+  **monospace**, far wider than the Inter that was measured. The modelled
+  combination was shipped by no theme at all.
+  The insight: **a menu must fit its longest label, which is a count of
+  characters — so the window has to scale with the font, not the screen.** 40%
+  of a 1366 panel and of a 2560 one give the same row 546px and 1024px, and a
+  14pt mono theme needs ~25% more room than an 11pt one on both; a percentage
+  cannot see either fact. Rofi has the right unit — `ch`, the width of one digit
+  in the theme's own font — and `calc( … min … )` to cap it. So every text menu
+  (generated + all nine whole-swaps) is now `width: calc( 84ch min 65% )`:
+  84ch fits the longest row we ship (69 chars) plus icon and padding, and the
+  cap answers Bernardo's condition — a big font on a small panel is clamped
+  rather than sprawling. Measured on hardware: 84ch = 756px in GeistMono 11 and
+  924px in JetBrainsMono 14, `calc( 84ch min 300px )` → 300px (the cap really
+  clamps). V3 by screenshot, both ends: the real Recovery menu at 756px (29% of
+  2560) with every label complete, and the Acer's worst case reproduced exactly
+  — 888px (=65% of 1366) with JetBrainsMono 14 — also complete. Grid views
+  (theme picker, drun) override width per-invocation and are untouched: they are
+  sized by icons, not text. `checks.rofi-text-width` guards the class — a
+  whole-swap that sizes its text menu without `ch` + a `min` cap fails, proven
+  by pinning boreal back to 620px and watching it name boreal.
 - ✓ **Waybar whole-swap on-clicks lost their environment (#141, 2026-07-16):**
   clicking the updates module did nothing. Not an updates bug — a **parity**
   break: the generated module bakes the terminal in at eval time, but the four

flake.nix

@@ -1473,6 +1473,44 @@
             in
             assert ok; pkgs.runCommand "nomarchy-waybar-swap-env" { } "touch $out";
 
+          # A text menu must fit its longest label, which is a count of
+          # characters — so the picker has to be sized in the theme's own font
+          # (`ch`), never in % of the monitor or fixed px (#131: boreal pinned
+          # 620px and truncated Recovery on a 2560 panel; 40% themes truncate at
+          # 1366 while looking fine at 2560, and a 14pt mono theme needs ~25%
+          # more room than an 11pt one on both). The `min` cap is the other half
+          # — without it a big font on a small panel sprawls across the screen.
+          # Grid views (theme picker, drun) legitimately size by icons and
+          # override width per-invocation; this only governs the base theme.
+          rofi-text-width =
+            let
+              inherit (nixpkgs) lib;
+              expect = cond: msg: lib.assertMsg cond "rofi-text-width: ${msg}";
+              swaps = lib.filter
+                (n: builtins.pathExists (./themes + "/${n}/rofi.rasi"))
+                (builtins.attrNames (builtins.readDir ./themes));
+              widthOf = name:
+                let
+                  text = builtins.readFile (./themes + "/${name}/rofi.rasi");
+                  m = builtins.match ".*window[[:space:]]*\\{[^}]*width:[[:space:]]*([^;]+);.*" text;
+                in
+                if m == null then null else lib.head m;
+              bad = lib.filter
+                (name:
+                  let w = widthOf name; in
+                  w == null
+                  || builtins.match ".*ch.*" w == null
+                  || builtins.match ".*min.*" w == null)
+                swaps;
+              ok =
+                expect (swaps != [ ])
+                  "fixture drift: no theme ships a rofi.rasi — the guard is checking nothing"
+                && expect (bad == [ ])
+                  ("a whole-swap sizes its text menu without `ch` and a `min` cap, so it "
+                    + "cannot fit its own font's labels: " + lib.concatStringsSep ", " bad);
+            in
+            assert ok; pkgs.runCommand "nomarchy-rofi-text-width" { } "touch $out";
+
           # Docking artifact guard: default/no-profile Home Manager output
           # must still launch both hotplug watchers, put Rofi on the focused
           # monitor, expose the manual keyboard picker, and never ship the

modules/home/rofi.nix

@@ -1805,7 +1805,20 @@ in
             border = px t.ui.borderSize;
             border-color = mkLiteral "@accent";
             border-radius = px t.ui.rounding;
-            width = mkLiteral "40%";
+            # Sized in `ch` — the width of one digit in *this theme's* font —
+            # not in % of the monitor (#131). A menu has to fit its longest
+            # label, and that is a count of characters, so the window must
+            # scale with the font: 40% of a 1366 panel and 40% of a 2560 one
+            # give the same row 546px and 1024px, while a 14pt monospace theme
+            # needs ~25% more room than an 11pt one on both. 84ch fits the
+            # longest row we ship (69 chars) plus icon and padding, measured on
+            # hardware: 756px in GeistMono 11, 924px in JetBrainsMono 14.
+            # The `min` cap is what keeps that honest on a small screen — the
+            # window may never eat more than 65% of the panel, so a big font on
+            # a 1366 gets a capped 888px rather than sprawling. Grid views
+            # (theme picker, drun) override this per-invocation; they are sized
+            # by icons, not text.
+            width = mkLiteral "calc( 84ch min 65% )";
             padding = px 8;
           };
 

themes/boreal/rofi.rasi

@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ window {
     border: 1px;
     border-color: @frostEdge;
     border-radius: 14px;
-    width: 620px;
+    width: calc( 84ch min 65% );
     location: center;
     anchor: center;
     padding: 16px;

themes/executive-slate/rofi.rasi

@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ window {
     border: 1px;
     border-color: @overlay;
     border-radius: 4px;
-    width: 40%;
+    width: calc( 84ch min 65% );
     location: center;
     anchor: center;
     padding: 12px;

themes/kanagawa/rofi.rasi

@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ window {
     border: 2px;
     border-color: @paper;      /* the warm paper frame (kanagawa's border tone) */
     border-radius: 10px;
-    width: 40%;
+    width: calc( 84ch min 65% );
     location: center;
     anchor: center;
     padding: 8px;

themes/lumon/rofi.rasi

@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ window {
     border: 3px;               /* a screen bezel */
     border-color: @cyan;
     border-radius: 4px;        /* boxy, faintly softened */
-    width: 40%;
+    width: calc( 84ch min 65% );
     location: center;
     anchor: center;
     padding: 10px;

themes/neon-glass/rofi.rasi

@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ window {
     border: 1px;
     border-color: @neonEdge;
     border-radius: 16px;
-    width: 620px;
+    width: calc( 84ch min 65% );
     location: center;
     anchor: center;
     padding: 18px;

themes/nord/rofi.rasi

@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ window {
     border: 2px;
     border-color: @frost1;
     border-radius: 14px;       /* Nord is soft and rounded */
-    width: 40%;
+    width: calc( 84ch min 65% );
     location: center;
     anchor: center;
     padding: 8px;

themes/retro-82/rofi.rasi

@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ window {
     border: 2px;
     border-color: @amber;
     border-radius: 0px;        /* sharp: this is a terminal */
-    width: 40%;
+    width: calc( 84ch min 65% );
     location: center;
     anchor: center;
     padding: 10px;

themes/summer-day/rofi.rasi

@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ window {
     border-bottom: 5px;
     border-color: @yellow;
     border-radius: 15px;
-    width: 40%;
+    width: calc( 84ch min 65% );
     /* No fixed height — size to content (fixed-num-lines:false) so every
      * entry shows without scrolling and there's no empty space below. */
     location: center;

themes/summer-night/rofi.rasi

@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ window {
     border-bottom: 5px;
     border-color: @yellow;
     border-radius: 15px;
-    width: 40%;
+    width: calc( 84ch min 65% );
     /* No fixed height — size to content (fixed-num-lines:false) so every
      * entry shows without scrolling and there's no empty space below. */
     location: center;