Dunno about your problem, but your script can be simplified: #!/bin/sh prompt=Liste action=cd if index=`ls -dU */ .*/ | dmenu -i -p "$prompt: $PWD"`; then $action $index && lsd; else actions fi dmenu itself fails if you hit escape; it only succeeds if you actually choose something, so it can be used in the if clause directly. (I know this because I have a bug in yeganesh that violates this useful behavior. If I ever get around to making another release, it will have a fix for this. =) As for autocompletion... doesn't dmenu have that built in? (Try hitting tab, or left and right when there are multiple completions.) Cheers, ~d