- This topic has 24 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated Dec 14-4:48 pm by PPC.
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Dave
###Create list of availables app
for file in /usr/share/applications/other directories the script might consult:
/usr/share/applications/antix/
~/.local/share/applications/There are others as well, I do not recall all of them.
One is /usr/share/menu
Another is /opt/
Though these are not (always) based on the xdg specification, so likely useless for the scope of this program.Computers are like air conditioners. They work fine until you start opening Windows. ~Author Unknown
PPC
“Final” version of my “Add icons to desktop” script.
Code available here:
https://pastebin.com/raw/K37L8nruFeatures:
– checks if user is on a supported desktop, if not, displays warning and exits
– minimizes all open windows, so user can see the desktop icons
– presents a (localized) list of the names of “all” available applications (and respective .desktop files). The user simply has to double click the correct app name and it’s icon, with the correct name is placed on the current spacefm or rox managed desktop. The window remains open until the user closes it, so the user can add counteless iconsI included Skiddo’s first suggestions. the script comments explain to the users how to add more folders to be displayed on the list…
EDIT: changing desktops I noticed something that I had never noticed before- each Rox desktop (icewm, jwm and fluxox) has it’s own pinboard (place where desktop icons are stored)… So when I have the stamina, I’ll have to add to this script a way to edit the correct pinboard being used by the desktop ( I guess that was what you meant, skidoo ???)
As is the script works fine, but forces a change on the pinboard being used (the user looses access to the previous pinboard icons)…
Since I’m dead tired, anyone interested can try to fix that… or wait for a fix…@anticapitalista / dev team – would not make sense to have the same pinboard, and the same icons available across all rox desktops, so the user can have a more uniform experience? Just asking, I do see the value of having completely “isolated” desktops…
P.
- This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by PPC.
Anonymous
It’s reasonable to expect that a given user will prefer, and consistently use, a specific window manager. Anyone who does care to switch to-and-fro between WMs may welcome the customizability afforded by ability to independently tweak each pinboard. The yad UI might (or not) provide a help button to present helptext explaining that the pinboard associated with each WM is separately customizable. (That would be an oversimplified explanation anyhow ~~ actually, we’re free to restart rox and specify a different clipboard at any time, regardless which window manager is used.)
> I see no reason for Desktop icons at all
Please try to expand your vision beyond thinking of the eyecons as “launchers”.
A goal of the RoxDesktop environment, back around the year 2000, was to provide non-techies with drag-n-drop interaction. A customized “image management” pinboard might present various drop target eyecons, each bound to a different scripted action (make a copy of THIS, resized to 800×600) (select, select, select, drop THESE items into THAT folder) (perform a “sharpen, 10%” filter on THIS image, then upload to xyz)…Rox was really was “ahead of its time”. If you research its “AppDir” functionality (and trading bespoke package AppDirs via zeroinstall), notice the similarity to “AppImages”. Ability to swap pinboards? That rox functionality, back around 2003(!)… likely inspired KDE to {cough} invent “Activities”.
seaken64
@manyroads,
Not that anyone should care… but I see no reason for Desktop icons at all. Never use them myself.
I guess we could say the same about file manager GUI’s and “Folder Icons” etc. Not really needed. But many people find these pictures on the screen easier to understand than a string of letters entered on the command line.
I came kicking and screaming into this GUI paradigm. I was a CP/M and DOS user and had no use for pretty pictures on a screen to do what I could do with a command. When I sat down in front of a MAC, which happened once in awhile as I was known to associates as a “computer guy”, I was lost! I could not understand why I could not even get to a command line!
When I was setting up an antiX machine in our store to use as a music player I was new to antiX. I tried to create a “desktop icon” that my workmates could “click” on to launch the browser and automatically open a specific webpage. They need the pretty picture. They could not remember to open the browser and click on a bookmark. And to ask them to launch a local music player app from the command line would be too much! Too scary! I needed that “icon”, the pretty picture, on the desktop to be successful in getting my staff to launch the correct application.
That led me to start learning how to do in antiX what I had done in Windows. I was used to Windows and it was “easy” for me to do this. But it was not easy in antiX because I didn’t know what ROX was, or a Pinboard, or lot’s of other things about how antiX worked. I know now. But then I did not. If I was not a geeky computer enthusiast I would not have figured it out. So, I think this is why something like what PPC has presented is useful. It may make it easier for new antiX users to be immediately productive and help them set up their “familiar” desktop.
Seaken64
Brian Masinick
Seaken64 said: “I guess we could say the same about file manager GUI’s and “Folder Icons” etc. Not really needed. But many people find these pictures on the screen easier to understand than a string of letters entered on the command line.”
I started my computing days on a teletype device in 1973 while I was still in high school. To save programs, we put them on Paper Tape and carefully rolled them up and put a band or something around them. When I first went to college, all programs were input via 80 character punched cards. I didn’t care for that much at all, and it didn’t take long for me to find the green (or amber) screen displays, from which you could actually type on directly.
It was at that point that I formally learned about “files” in which to save programs and editors, by which I could edit them. This was a LONG time before Web browsers, but it wasn’t very long that I discovered the early “Internet” as we know it today. The early network-based applications were somewhat similar to the early AOL and other services that the public was learning about, but instead of being for “common” every day people, at the time these networks came from academic and research circles.
It was there that I learned about ARPAnet, Internet, USEnet newsgroups, and other things. Such things led me to the powerful but non-typical tools like Emacs – for editing and most of those curious network things of the era. By the early nineties, I heard about, and got my hands on some of the early browsers like Mosaic, which predated Netscape, Internet Explorer and the others.
By the time that Web browsers emerged I was already using network tools on a daily basis; I had Email tools that could read and write information and send them anywhere that had an address you could use. I participated in several projects that attempted to get a common format and fortunately most of the things I did were very compatible with what finally emerged as Name@business.[com,net,org,edu…]. When it was obvious that was going to be the common format I made sure that the products built where I worked migrated toward what is clearly the standard today.
I always found command tools to run “faster” than GUI-based tools, but the GUI-based tools could often be reached with one or two clicks. What I did, then, was to create command and keypad assignments that made the majority of my most common commands possible with a few keystrokes. If I had a long command that I invoked the same way I’d connect it to one key or one letter. If it had an argument, if possible I’d try to combine a shortcut with an argument list so that I could economize on that too. The other thing I did was make the most of both command and GUI interfaces; I used both, and as the GUI improved I used it more often. To this day though, I’ll use a command interface if I’m simply accessing a file with an application, and I use those shortcuts to make it easy, and I include some in my shell configuration; others I change on the fly and incorporate them if I find myself repeatedly using them.
To this day I try to use the tools that work for me. Since I’m retired, I am out of date in terms of not knowing every one of the latest and greatest apps and tools, but I get around plenty well; if I need to “learn” something new, I am still capable of learning, even “When I’m 64…”
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Brian MasinickHi everyone- just sharing something about this subject:
– I do not use desktop icons myself – I use min-fluxbox with tint2 toolbar (that has all my most used icon launchers)
– when I came to Linux, and antiX in particular, I was still a heavy desktop icons user – that was part of my work flow, as is for most users…
– I developed this script in an effort to help ease users (no matter if newbies or not) to antiX- most OS’s do allow the users to simply drag and drop their files to the desktops, to have quick access to them, so why not try to have that available, in a easy to understand way, to all users?My only to do – since I stopped scripting for a while is having the script find out what pinboard is currently being used and apply changes to that pinboard. Maybe, quiering the desktop name and assuming that, if it’s rox-jwm- the rox-jwm pinboard is being used, etc…
Most of the hard work is already done. For the script to be “perfect”, someone (me -when I get my scripting groove back- or some other person) needs to address that issueP.
Xecure
– I do not use desktop icons myself – I use min-fluxbox with tint2 toolbar (that has all my most used icon launchers)
Be aware that in the future you may have to switch to normal WM (not min or with desktop icon handler), and disable the startup desktop-session option in the config file.
I say this because min-WM was aimed at reducing any/all things loaded at boot, including the window manager startup file. So tint2 will not be loading in the future min-fluxbox session if you have it configured in the ~/.fluxbox/startup.Source: https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/understanding-desktop-session-antix/#post-46602
antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.@Xecure- Thanks for the heads up… I missed that post on your thread… I’ll have to also change how my script to install and configure “antiX FT 10” works, when the Dev team “fixes” that…
By the way.. do you have any idea how to find out what rox pin board is currently being used???P.
Xecure
By the way.. do you have any idea how to find out what rox pin board is currently being used???
I think you need to play with the ps -aux output.
See if this works:
ps -aux | grep -v "grep" | grep -m1 "rox --pinboard" | cut -d"=" -f2-antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.Hi, I’m not fully back to scripting, but, thanks to a suggestion provided by Xecure, the latest version of the script is here:
https://pastebin.com/raw/YNvL57HM
Changelog:
-Script now tries to find out what rox pinboard is being used to display desktop icons and changes that pinboard (if, for some reason, it misses the correct pinboard, it tries to work with a pinboard called “default”Thanks a lot, Xecure!
Edit: I just noticed that running this script with tint2 toolbar running results in the toolbar being minimized… So if you are a tint2 user, remove (or comment out) the automatically minimize all open windows part of the script (lines 19-25)
Edit: Also, thanks for the help. Dave!P.
- This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by PPC.
- This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by PPC.
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