Binary package “j4-dmenu-desktop” in ubuntu xenial

faster replacement for i3-dmenu-desktop

 j4-dmenu-desktop is a replacement for i3-dmenu-desktop. It's purpose
 is to find .desktop files and offer you a menu to start an application
 using dmenu.
 .
 It is much faster than the default i3-dmenu-desktop method to obtain a list
 of programs parsed from .desktop files.