antiX 22: selecting preferred applications

[Member calciumsodium]

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Hello,
Thanks for letting us test these scripts.

My impression of scripts 1.3 vs 1.4:

1.4 takes 15 seconds to open on this antiX22 base. It will probably take longer to open on a full system.

1.3 opens immediately.

My own opinion is that I would prefer 1.3 over 1.4. 1.4 just takes too long. The spirit of antiX is that it is lean and mean and fast. This 1.4 version does not feel like that to me.

Just my own thoughts as one user.

• This reply was modified 6 months ago by calciumsodium.

[Member PPC]

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@Robin – From the start screen of your script alone I can see how much work you poured it into it… but…

I tested it in antiX 19, on a quadcore, with and SSD drive and it took almost 30 minutes (LOL, sorry for the mistake) seconds to open the main window – that’s a bit of overkill for such trivial task, when the current version of the scrip opens in about 1 second- for people that want to deal with any problem the new friendlier script has, there’s always the “free choice” option, that uses the all powerful “select any .desktop file and pick up the pieces if you mess up…” approach…
Also your main window came up huge on my 1024/7xx monitor, for some reason – and I mean, several screens wide!

Your version of Bob’s script ran fine (but did not, as I already test in this antiX 19 machine) use the localization that worked perfectly in antiX 21…- It even solved that bug that bothers me the most, not picking up “Geany” as a Test Editor option…

In my opinion – and I just got an earfull from a user about my FT10-transformation script… Choose very carefully where you spend your time – in this particular case you made a wonderfull program and works perfectly (except that window size problem) but is over twenty times slower than the previous version, on my fastest device (at home, my other system is my antiX 21, 32bits laptop… but I’ll try to test it there in a bit).

Unsolicited opinion/ remark on Life:
Users don’t want something perfect – they want something that does what it’s supposed to do- that’s why Linux is not widely adopted on desktops – it can’t (for now) run all the software that people are used to running, or when it’s able to do it, it’s in a far too complex/slow way… That’s why most of the world desktop users stick with Windows- it just works for them, it allows them to use the Office apps they are used to, going back 30 years, runs the Graphics apps they are used to use on their work, runs the games they want to play (I recently got burned on that, when I tried to play some games that used to play great on Epic / Heroic Store and my antiX desktop just told me- “No, f. you man, go read a book…”

P.

• This reply was modified 6 months ago by PPC.

[Moderator BobC]

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Robin, As for 1.4, some of your creative code amazes me. I admit I don’t know enough to fully understand how it works.

The only time I use the function myself is when I add a new major program to replace the previous default, or when trying to reproduce problems when testing. I guess its not up to me to say how much delay is tolerable, or to say when the criteria are finally perfect. I don’t think they ever will be perfect because the Categories input values are not validated, and .desktop files are not always supplied, depending on the program’s origin.

As for 1.3, I was just trying to improve Dave’s previous version to try to present people with options that would work for the application, and trying to eliminate ones that didn’t make sense to use as defaults, as well as provide translation where possible. Maybe that code could be made more flexible, by taking the grep includes and excludes and shipping the system with the initial values in /etc/skel, copying them for users created with other defaults, and then loading them from an editable script like ~/.desktop-session/desktop-defaults-conf. This would not be a prefect solution, but it would be consistent with the underlying system’s design, and maintenance for that file is already provided for on the session tab of the control centre. The other thing I think it could have used was consistent field naming and perhaps a more modular methodology in the area of building the list of applications to present for selection. At the time I started, there was only minimal selection being done, and they didn’t all seem to fit the same mold, but I think you found the commonalities.

[Member Robin]

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Version 1.3

Updated the antiX 22 based version “1.3-test”, made the buttons translatable freely as per discussed request above.

Download 1.3-test script file
Download 1.3-test language master file (.pot) for creation or update of .po language files using poedit.

I have the impression that the filters need some more tuning in the 1.3 version. Some important programs don’t show up at all, while some others are present for default selection which are not feasable at all for the meant purpose.
Text Editor: “Xournal” and “Rosegarden” needs to get excluded. While “nano” is missing.
Image Viewers: Missing: “ImageMagick” (in case it is installed), “Gimp” (in case it is installed)
“Gtkam” shows up, but should not, since it doesn’t allow to view images if these are not to be downloaded from a camera device.
Video: “ytfzf” and “smtube” need to get filtered.
Audio: “pmrp” shoudn’t show up, and also not “ytfzf”.
Same goes for a bunch of midi players and editors, not suitable at all for default audio playback.

Version 1.4

The other branch 1.4 with new filter logic was updated also, to work faster now. Now it reads the list from a preset file, meant to be provided in the /etc/skel in the ISOs for a specific antiX variant. It needs to get updated by user only once, and in case he has installed or deinstalled some program he wants to set as default. An additional routine makes sure the stored preset list is updated also when free choice is used for selection.

Download 1.4-test script file
Download 1.4-test language master file (.pot) for creation or update of .po language files using poedit.

Additionally this update fixed an issue with a leftover running forever child process from the first 1.4 test version.

So long
Robin

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Member calciumsodium]

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I am testing this latest 1.3 version.

Test system is antiX21 32 bit.

I want to test this Free Choice option.

For the Terminal option, I select DosBox. antiX launches DosBox when I select terminal in the menu. Good so far.

Then for the Web Browser option, I choose nano just to see if it would launch nano if I select Web Browser from the menu. When I select Web Browser from the menu, it launches not nano, but DosBox!!! What is going on? Please see screenshot.jpg.

Then for the File Manager option, I choose nano just to see if it would launch nano if I select File Manager option from the menu. When I select File Manager from the menu, it launches not nano, but DosBox!!! What is going on? Please see screenshot1.jpg.

Is this a bug or am I not doing this program correctly? Can someone try to reproduce this test and get the same result?

• This reply was modified 5 months, 3 weeks ago by calciumsodium.

[Member calciumsodium]

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Screenshot.jpg and screenshot1.jpg

• This reply was modified 5 months, 3 weeks ago by calciumsodium.

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[Moderator BobC]

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Your choices are irrational. See if it doesn’t do the same thing on an unupdated flashdrive that runs the original program.

[Member calciumsodium]

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I think that with the FreeChoice option, one can screw things up easily if one does not know what they are doing. Is it possible to have a button to go back to “Default settings” option just in case one messes things up?

[Member Robin]

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calciumsodium wrote:

Is it possible to have a button to go back to “Default settings” option just in case one messes things up?

Yes, this is built-in already. The first screen is meant to provide you with some more feasible selections. So simply start the program anew and select something from its first screen, which hopefully comes up with a proper selection soon. This way you can get back always to a usable system state, whatever you’ve messed up in the free choice screen before.

calciumsodium wrote:

Is this a bug or am I not doing this program correctly?

You simply don’t get the program DosBox right: It is not a Linux terminal emulator. If you set it as system default, no other program expecting a functional Linux terminal emulator to be present (like nano, vim etc. and all script-based programs) will fail, since they can’t run in an emulated MS-DOS environment. That’s why always DOS Box comes up only instead of whichever program, once you’ve set it as system wide terminal emulator. So this is expected behaviour, not a bug. The bug in this case sits right in front of screen and keyboard and has probably 10 fingers to nkey in something. 🙂 In short words: You have messed up the system with an impossible selection. That’s all. Simply reset it using the first screen of the Program, back to something reasonable.

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Member calciumsodium]

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I tested the new 1.4 version. On this old 32-bit system with a maximum CPU frequency of 1500, the Updated Fields took 46 seconds to complete.

Thanks for letting us try and test these scripts. It would be good to learn how to use this program once some version of it becomes the official version. In the previous tests, I was trying to find what the limits of this program was.

I don’t know how to code, but I can see this is a lot of hard work. Thanks.

[Member Robin]

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calciumsodium wrote:

In the previous tests, I was trying to find what the limits of this program was.

It was clear to me from the first moment you’ve been playing the Advocatus Diaboli. I knew and do know pretty good you are not a ten-fingered bug in front of screen 🙂 This was meant as a friendly badinage merely. Many thanks for checking the limits!

I believe, we don’t need to pamper the user in the second screen. This is meant to be free choice, so it’s up to users responsibility to take reasonable decisions about selection. Responsibility is one of the core points of freedom.

In the first screen we take this responsibility by narrowing the selection to what is suitable in the categories. This is the raison d’être of this first screen, meant to narrow down the selection for unexperienced users who still can’t care for themselves. I’m convinced the selection in the first screen has to be as accurate as possible for exactly this reason.

calciumsodium wrote:

the Updated Fields took 46 seconds to complete.

Yes, when updating its stored list, it actually checks file by file for the multiple matching criteria setup in the filter control. It takes time to be precise. Luckily this step hasn’t to be repeated as long as the program a user wants to set as default is present in the fields. Generally the “update” button needs to be pressed only in case a freshly installed program meant for setting as default isn’t present still. As long nothing has been installed or removed, it is fine just reading the stored selection results and changing them. And a readymade preset, tailored to default antiX program selection should be delivered along with the script when used in antiX ISO or package, so user won’t ever see the initial message and empty selection fields. I believe this way we can have it following the antiX device to be lean, mean and fast on the one hand, and on the other hand precise also the very moment when precision is actually needed.

PPC wrote:

main window came up huge on my 1024/7xx monitor, for some reason – and I mean, several screens wide!

Did this happen with the most recent version of 1.4 again?

Many thanks for all your testing!
Robin

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Member calciumsodium]

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Robin wrote:

And a readymade preset, tailored to default antiX program selection should be delivered along with the script when used in antiX ISO or package, so user won’t ever see the initial message and empty selection fields. I believe this way we can have it following the antiX device to be lean, mean and fast on the one hand, and on the other hand precise also the very moment when precision is actually needed.

I think this is a good idea because it was a little bit disconcerting as a user to see completely empty fields for the first time in version 1.4. We are so used to populated fields to start out with.
Thanks again.

[Member Robin]

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New testing version for 1.4 branch available, installable test package now.

This time it comes with a separate filter configuration file, so no longer the program code itself needs to get touched when filter settings are to be adjusted later on. You’ll find this file in /usr/local/lib/antiX-desktop-defaults-set folder. Moreover it has an improved behaviour in the interplay between free choice and restricted selection. Some additional bugfixes have been applied.
The installer is configured to antiX 21/22 „full” program set. You can use it on 32 and 64 bit both, but please, keep in mind it is still a testing version, so best use a Live USB stick for checking out (while it won’t damage an installed system anyway).
If you want to have it configured to antiX base version, just edit the /usr/local/lib/antiX-desktop-defaults-set/selection.conf file to remove the nonexistent program entries from the lines before starting the fist time. (Alternatively just run „Update fields”, which will also clean the nonexistent entries from the lists.

If you want to run it on antiX 17 and antiX 19 for some reason, please make sure to manually copy the respective language file .mo type from antiX 21/22 version to your system’s language folder to have translations to your language present.

Direct Download: Installer Package 1.4-test-05 from gitlab

Direct Download: Checksum file

As usual, check download before installation by using the checksum file, only if it shows OK proceed:

shasum -c antix-desktop-defaults-set-test.deb.sha256.sum
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install './antix-desktop-defaults-set-test.deb'

Deinstallation is: sudo apt-get purge antix-desktop-defaults-set-test
After deinstallation the ~/.config/antiX-desktop-defaults-set folder in your home will remain, you can safely remove it manually.

The testing package doesn’t contain any language files, since these are owned by the desktop-defaults-set-antix package, so if you want to have it other than English completely, you need to update your language files manually, see below.

Direct Download: Language resource file (.pot)

You can update the existing .po file for your language, present on transifex, with the new strings from this resource file by using poedit (if not installed: sudo apt-get install poedit). Open old translation file of your language in poedit program, then choose from Menu „Translation” → „Update from POT file”.
enter all missing translations and check for highlighted strings, and when ready, save the file. This will create a .mo file next to it as well, which is meant to be copied to /usr/share/locale/<your-language-ID>/LC_MESSAGES folder.

Direct Download: Readymade German Language file (.mo type) for testing purposes

(You can copy this file to /usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES and use
LANG=de_DE.UTF-8 desktop-defaults-set
to start it in a foreign language.)

Script file unboxed: desktop-defaults-set ver. 1.4-test-05 (Just for looking into the code, it will not work properly without the other files (filter and preset) included in package being installed)

And here is the filter configuration file:

# desktop-defaults-set filter strings setup file
# valid tokens: cat=category, mime=MIME type, man=manually, incl=include, excl=exclude
# include all entry strings for a token into hard quotes '…'
# multiple entries in a single filter variable are to be separated by \|
# unused filter entries must stay empty completely.

# file manager
fm_cat_incl='FileManager'
fm_cat_excl=''
fm_mime_incl=''
fm_mime_excl=''
fm_man_incl=''
fm_man_excl=''

# terminal emulator
tem_cat_incl='TerminalEmulator'
tem_cat_excl='NoDefault'
tem_mime_incl=''
tem_mime_excl=''
tem_man_incl=''
tem_man_excl=''

# email client
ec_cat_incl='Email'
ec_cat_excl=''
ec_mime_incl='x-scheme-handler/mailto'
ec_mime_excl=''
ec_man_incl=''
ec_man_excl=''

# text editor
ted_cat_incl='TextEditor'
ted_cat_excl='WordProcessor\|AudioVideo'
ted_mime_incl='text/plain'
ted_mime_excl='text/x-lilypond\|application/pdf'
ted_man_incl=''
ted_man_excl=''

# internet browser
ib_cat_incl='WebBrowser'
ib_cat_excl='TextEditor'
ib_mime_incl='x-scheme-handler/http\|x-scheme-handler/https\|text/html'
ib_mime_excl=''
ib_man_incl=''
ib_man_excl=''

# image viewer
iv_cat_incl='Graphics'
iv_cat_excl='WebBrowser\|Scanning\|Screenshot\|Photography'
iv_mime_incl='image/'
iv_mime_excl='application/epub+zip\|text/pdf'
iv_man_incl=''
iv_man_excl='screenshot'

# video player
vp_cat_incl='Video'
vp_cat_excl='AudioVideoEditing\|Midi\|Sequencer\|Recorder'
vp_mime_incl='video/'
vp_mime_excl='application/x-subrip'
vp_man_incl=''
vp_man_excl='ytfzf\|smtube\|guvcview'

# audio player
ap_cat_incl='Audio'
ap_cat_excl='NoDefault\|AudioVideoEditing\|Sequencer\|Education\|TV\|Midi\|Video'
ap_mime_incl=''
ap_mime_excl='x-content/audio-cdda'
ap_man_incl=''
ap_man_excl='ytfzf\|smtube'

Please let me know if you find any entry in it missing or in need of change.

So long
Robin

Windows is like a submarine. Open a window and serious problems will start.

[Member calciumsodium]

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Hello @Robin,

I like this new version of 1.4. It has the feel of the previous 1.3 version but has the new features of the 1.4.

On this hp computer, the update field only took 12 seconds to complete.

CPU: Dual Core: Intel Core i5-4200M type: MT MCP speed: 2500 MHz min/max: 800/2500 MHz

I suppose on older computers it will take longer to complete.

Again, Thanks.

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[Member PPC]

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Hi!

I’m testing it as I write this:
– It started almost instantly, on this very slow device, and I see why- you changed the time consuming check for .desktops to a new button- master move.
– The “update” process takes, on this device, about 2 minutes… Only after I ran it all my browsers came up in the browser list.
– I do not have the extra wide window on this setup. so here, the window came up as usual, looking perfect.

It seems more usable, worked perfectly, changing the Text editor between geany/leafpad!!!

Suggestions:
– The “* unstranslated string” warning was a nice touch, but I think it confuses people- most app names are not localized, so most app names came up with that warning…
– Have the main window and the update window centered (yes, window managers tend to open windows on random places, unless told so otherwise)
– Have a tooltip when the mouse overs above the buttons, explaining what the “Update” and “Free choice” do, spacially a warning that “Update” can take a couple of minutes, on extremely slow machines- ex: “Update the list of available apps for each category. This can take from some seconds to a couple of minutes, dependning on your device!!!”

I’m not on a state of mind that allows me dive into scripting, but I offer one particular suggestion – I found it strange that not all browsers came up initially on the list.
Why not go for a middle road and make the initial content of the fields be the same as in Bob’s simpler version of the script and then update it after the user clicks “update”… or does that default the porpose of this version of the script? Sorry if it’s a silly suggestion!

As always, you produced a extremely detailed and carefull piece of scripting, Robin!

Edit: and because I’m a sucker for visual details – why not use, as window icon, the same “Yellow star” icon that is on Control Centre?
Edit2: I checked. The icon should be this one: /usr/share/icons/papirus-antix/48×48/places/bookmarks.png

Edit3: I just noticed something strange – gksu is included in “Terminals”, as “root terminal” (after I clicked the “Update” button);
Calibre edit, viewer and gui now take up 3 entried in the “Browser” field ? Also “Chromium” and “slimjet” come up as “new window”- I had to deal with that when I creating ToolbarIconManager- I had to select the correct “name” field, to avoid that… The same happens in “Claws” under “E-mail”- it comes up as “Receive”…
Image viewer include “Video players” like VLC, XINE and Totem (I didn’t even remember I had it installed)
Audio Player just showed my default audio player – deadbeat , and not xmms…

I hope all this info helps you debug the problem – just like the lighter Bob’s version – this, dispite everything, displays entries where none should be and has missing entries (at least xmms)… I know how frustrating a missbeaving script that took hours of work can be 🙁

P.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by PPC.
• This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by PPC.

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