The menu system provides a number of specical built-in functions, like the Run Program entry which can be used to create a custom Run dialog (this would generally require an external program in other window managers). All menu entries can be optionally bound to a hot-key shortcut, allowing mouse-free traversal with the keyboard. Next, there are several ways to populate menus with dynamic menu entries. Among them are:

• Pointing a menu entry at programs and subdirectories of a directory, (e.g., /usr/X11R6/bin), allowing the definition of a menu hierarchy through the filesystem
• Including the contents of another menu file, which gives the ability to modularize and create global menus (e.g. menus could be maintained by a sysadmin and placed in say /usr/local/share/WindowMaker/menu, allowing the users of a system to have a submenu that is always updated while still enabling customizations in their personal menus)
• Pointing a menu entry at data files in a directory (defined by a path with an optional glob pattern), where each of the data files specified gains a menu entry invoking a command with the data file as an argument

Another popular feature of the menu system is the ability to detach sub-menus, and "stick" or "pin" menus to the workspace so they are always visible. Looking at the image above, the Applications menu is considered the main menu, whereas Workspaces is a sub-menu that has been detached. The same goes for Appearance and its sub-menu Background. These features enable important menus to be made readily available on the desktop (e.g the Workspaces menu). Furthermore, by combining these features with Window Maker's menu scrolling effects, it is possible to have menus with only a small portion displayed on the screen (the title bar for instance). Placing the mouse over the visable portion, the menu would scroll into view while in use, and then scroll back to its previous position after losing mouse focus.