[SOLVED] Just a simple background->foreground message system

[ocpaul20]

Puppy 4.3.1 frugal

1) program A - running in background waiting for an event to happen.
a) when event happens, a message is created/appended to file ABC which is written to a directory which will be monitored by program B

2) program B - running in background
a) monitors a directory for a file "ABC" appearing. (ie event occurring)
b) When it appears, I want to put up a message dialogue on the screen with the text contents of the file ABC
c) The user acknowledges they have seen the message, clicks OK and the file ABC is deleted.
d) back to 2a)

I can program in php and get the part 1 of this sequence running. In the past I have programmed in C, so I can compile stuff.

It is the part 2 of this, the pop up of a dialogue box which I cannot manage on my own.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can implement this please,
or - can you point me to a useful resource to allow me to do this
or - maybe even write a small amount of code to accomplish it?

I would be most grateful for a bit of help please.
Thanks.
Paul

[tasmod]

Yaf splash for message.

Gtk dialog message box, spring to mind.

Google both in puppy search.

That's a bit of help as you requested

[L18L]

..
can you point me to a useful resource to allow me to do this
...

yad (yet another dialog)
or bacon (Basic to C converter, USEC for using C).
Info for both here in Programming.

[CatDude]

Hi

I am no coder,
but how about something like this:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

while sleep 15
do
if [ -f /path/to/your/file/ABC ]
 then
  MESSAGE=`cat /path/to/your/file/ABC`
  xmessage " `echo $MESSAGE`"
  rm -f /path/to/your/file/ABC
fi
done

CatDude
.

[ocpaul20]

OK, thanks. i'll try those suggestions and see how I get on.

That's excellent. I tried Catdude's solution and it works a treat. Thank to all. A useful little utility.

[technosaurus]

I came up with a way to do this using only jwm here:
murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=51200

[ocpaul20]

I could not get your suggestion to work in my script which is almost an exact copy of the one above. It is not a problem though as the one using xmessage works fine. I would like to tweak the background and foreground colours of the xmessage box, but thats not a big deal either. Anyway, this gets started up at boot time and then sits there checking for the ABC file in /tmp every 30 seconds and deletes the file after showing the contents on the screen and being acknowledged.

Code: Select all

while sleep 30 
 do 
 if [ -f /tmp/ABC ] 
  then 
   MESSAGE=`cat /tmp/ABC` 
#   xmessage " `echo $MESSAGE`" 
  jwm -msg  " `echo $MESSAGE`"
   rm -f /tmp/ABC 
 fi 
 done

[big_bass]

Hey ocpaul20

you can modify this to your needs

it is in Xdialog and the box auto closes in 5 seconds
10 30 5000
the 10 and 30 are box sizes the 5000 is 5 seconds auto close
remove the 5000 part if you want to force the click

the cat isnt needed if you make the message a string

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash 

# simulate message string for testing 
echo "whats up doc?" >/tmp/ABC
 
 
# delay preset  of 10 seconds 
sleep 10

if [ -f /tmp/ABC ]

do
 
     MESSAGE=$(</tmp/ABC)
   
     Xdialog --title "Checking" \
        	 --infobox "\n$MESSAGE\n" 10 30 5000
   
     rm -f /tmp/ABC
   fi
done

Joe

[ocpaul20]

Thanks Big_Bass. It all helps to understand what is possible with all the different message methods.

Yes, I think I need the confirmation that the user has seen the message before I delete the message file ready for the next one.
Cheers,
Paul

[technosaurus]

it wasn't jwm -msg ...
I wrote 2 little scripts called jwm_notify and jwm_denotify that do the same thing without having to recompile jwm (it should work for all versions) ... it uses less resources than even xmessage (as low as 100k if you use dash as the shell) but can display icons, tooltips and multiple messages at a time

just copy this to jwm_notify

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh 
echo '<JWM><Tray layout="vertical" halign="center" y="1" >' >$HOME/.jwmrc-notify 

while ([ $# -gt 1 ]) do 
SHORTMSG=${1:-JWM_NOTIFICATION} 
LONGMSG=${2:-$SHORTMSG} 
ICON=${3:-mini-dog.xpm} 
JWMNOTIFYCMD=${4:-exit} 
TIMEOUT=${5:-5} 
echo '<TrayButton label="'$SHORTMSG'" popup="'$LONGMSG'" icon="'$ICON'">exec:jwm_denotify' $JWMNOTIFYCMD'</TrayButton>' >>$HOME/.jwmrc-notify 
shift 4 
done 

echo '</Tray></JWM>' >>$HOME/.jwmrc-notify 
jwm -restart 
sleep $TIMEOUT 
[ -e $HOME/.jwmrc-notify ] && jwm_denotify exit

and this to jwm_denotify

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh 
rm $HOME/.jwmrc-notify && jwm -restart 
[ `which $1` ] && $@

make them executable and put them in /usr/bin

the usage is
jwm_notify "short message to display" "long message that displays with mouseover" /path/to/icon.png "command_to_run_if_clicked" <seconds_to_display_msg(default is 5)>

If invoked with no args, these are the defaults:
SHORTMSG=${1:-JWM_NOTIFICATION}
LONGMSG=${2:-$SHORTMSG}
ICON=${3:-mini-dog.xpm}
JWMNOTIFYCMD=${4:-exit}
TIMEOUT=${5:-5}

I coded it in about 5 minutes, so I haven't made up a pet yet (I've been away from home for a couple months)