simple hints pop-up

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miriam
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simple hints pop-up

#1 Post by miriam »

Everybody has difficulty remembering certain simple, but odd, things. One of my bugbears is the key-shortcuts in the Linux shell. Well, I have found a simple way around the problem, while teaching them to me. I keep a small application icon on the desktop called CLI-tips. When I pause my mouse over the icon a popup tips box appears that lists the most useful shortcuts -- no need to click on anything and take the focus away from the shell window I'm currently using, and when I move the mouse off the icon the popup disappears.

I have uploaded it to my site at
http://miriam-english.org/files/CLI-tips.tar.gz

Note that while I use it to remind me of the shell command-line interface key shortcuts, you can easily adapt it for anything you want. When you unzip it you have an application folder which you can place anywhere; I keep it in my ~/my-roxapps folder but you might want to keep it in /usr/local/apps

Of course you need to drop the application folder onto the desktop to see it there. :)

Incidentally, it is best to put the icon at the bottom screen to give it maximum room.

To alter the files in the application shift-click it, or right-click it and choose "Look Inside" from the popup menu. There are only 3 files in there:

AppInfo.xml - is the most important because it is a text file that gives the popup text.

AppRun - is a shell script. I normally have this pointing at a document on the bash shell in a gigantic reference folder on my machine, but I've altered it for you so it simply opens the AppInfo.xml file in the default text editor.

.DirIcon - is the application's icon. You can replace this with any that is more to your taste.

Hope this is of use to someone.
Last edited by miriam on Sun 26 Apr 2009, 06:20, edited 2 times in total.
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ecomoney
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#2 Post by ecomoney »

A novel idea to a common problem, but it works!

Thank you, I learnt a thing or two from it.

You might want to include these supurb but forgotten shellscript examples for V2 ;-)

http://www.puppylinux.org/wiki/archives ... tsexamples
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#3 Post by miriam »

Thanks ecomoney.

The shellscripts page you referred me to is very cool. There are some great items in that list. Thank you for pointing me to it. I must point out though, that the two items titled Copy and Paste seem wrong -- they look like they say that CTRL-C copies text highlighted in rxvt, and that CTRL-Insert pastes into rxvt. Actually CTRL-C copies highlighted text from almost anywhere except from rxvt, and CTRL-V pastes text almost anywhere except into rxvt. I couldn't get CTRL-Insert to do anything inside or outside of rxvt. I believe CTRL-Insert and SHIFT-CTRL-Insert work inside MSWindows the same way as copy and paste...

In rxvt, simply highlighting text copies it to the clipboard. And pressing the middle mouse button (the scroll wheel) inserts text from the clipboard.

I would edit the page, but I can't work out how to -- also, just because CTRL-Insert doesn't do anything on mine doesn't mean it's not true on other people's machines, I guess.
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#4 Post by ecomoney »

Your welcome Miriam. Yes the copy and past commands are wrong...the way you suggest works.

I think the reason you cant edit it is because its archived now.

We need a new wiki page with this information on it ;-)

Heres another one

gcompris >> errors.txt

This redirects errors from the command line when running a program to a nice text file, that can be posted on the forum.
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#5 Post by miriam »

Yes, redirection can be incredibly useful. A single ">" will redirect normal output to a file, but as you point out ">>" is often much more useful because it appends to the text file instead of overwriting it.

If you want to catch error messages then "2>" or "2>>"can be useful. They catch the standard error (stderr) output (for example cp -R fromdir todir 2>> errors.txt backs up fromdir giving you a list of only those files that didn't copy).

One of the best pieces I've seen on redirection is at:
http://www.linfo.org/redirection.html

Another wiki for Puppy would be great. Is there one? This forum is terrific, but finding data can be difficult. It relies almost completely on people noticing a post and replying, which in turn depends upon posting time and selecting a good subject name.
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#6 Post by Lobster »

Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

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#7 Post by ecomoney »

The wikis generally need updating Miriam, would be great if you would do a bit of work tidying them up.

Predefined bookmarks in puppy browsers to these locations would be a great help for new users.
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#8 Post by miriam »

Thanks for the list Lobster.

Ecomoney, I may have a bit of time soon, in a month or two after I finish a blender3D project (using Puppy!). I'll put it on my list of things to have a go at.
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#9 Post by ecomoney »

Wow a filmmaker! Remember to put www.puppylinux.org in the credits, and post a link here for us all to see.
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#10 Post by miriam »

While I have made some short films before that isn't what I'm doing with Puppy and Blender. I'm making a story that plays out inside a 3D world. It is a bit hard to explain, but imagine being able to step inside a film... it will (hopefully) be a little like that (though less realistic of course). You can read more about it on my site at
http://miriam-english.org/articles/VR-fiction2.html

And yes, Puppy will definitely be in the credits. :D
I'll be posting everywhere I can think of when it is done. It will be freely downloadable and opensource.
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