Suggestions for *nix framework to write a menu interface

Question

I am going to write a full-screen menu interface to run on Linux and *BSD which is controllable primarily by a game pad and wanted suggestions for a language/framework that is well suited to this problem. Each menu item will launch an external program.

It would preferably be easily theme-able, and load menu data from text files, perhaps in the form itemName: "command -to -execute".

Answer 1

For example: Python + PyQT

Answer 2

I used pygame for a interface that runs fullscreen in framebuffermode and is controllable only using cursor keys

There are also wrappers for ruby, c++, ... if python doesn't suit you well

Answer 3

Alternately, Python + PyGTK should work well.

Answer 4

Qt for Embedded Linux is a good framework, but it's a bit lower level than a canned menu-of-external-commands that you seem to be looking for.

What you're describing sounds very similar to MythTV's menus. You might see how they do it (or even borrow their code, if their license is compatible with yours and if their design is modular enough).