(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I hopefully do not rediscover the wheel but I made a little app that provides an applications panel for JWM and a control GUI to go with it (see picture), similar to other window/desktop managers.
It is handy for small screens, where any window will cover all the Desktop launchers, and voids the need to navigate through the (deep) menus too.

This started some time ago and evolved based in a Micko's app, but I thought to give it an independent thread for possible feed back/problems.

The panel control GUI has a menu entry under "Desktop -> Settings". Through the GUI you can change the position and the "thickness" of the panel (from 24 to 64 pixels), the order of the buttons and make the panel always visible on top of windows or auto-hiden.
Makes fairly simple to add new application buttons in the panel and of course delete them. Even provides the option to manually edit an item in a text file (eg correct a typo without deleting and re-adding the app button), and if you have geany will open exactly on the line you want to edit.
The pet will also generate an initial panel at the top of the screen as shown in the picture.
The icon style follows your desktop icon theme and will change if you change it (as long as you use the icons from the default location)

You may also want to install Micko's desksetup.pet to easier change the layout of the ROX desktop icons or eliminate them all together

Enjoy.

Update v0.7 will not auto-quit anymore after applying some changes

Update 2 v0.8 has an uninstall script to remove every trace of the pet after removal with PPM. Also includes the options to generate backup at will.

Update 3 v0.9 is if functionally identical to v0.8 but in notebook layout so can fit in very small (640x480) screens

Update 4 v1.0 is not closing other open gtkdialogs when reseting.

Update 5 v1.1 to be used only with jwm versions2.3.0 or newer ie puppies built after 7/2015

The picture from v0.8 (lower) shows the main, single panel, interface and the dialogs to reorder/edit/delete an application in the panel (though they do not appear all together as shown )

mavrothal wrote:I hopefully do not rediscover the wheel

Boy... do I?...

Only too late I fount 2Palt - 2Ps2d! That's because is in French and does not contain the words JWM and panel or tray, so is not picked by searches.
If you are looking for an JWM applications tray give it a try (after you try this one ). Don't be deterred by French, comes with English, German and Spanish too.

I think you're also reinventing TrayManager

I presume your one uses gtkdialog... does 2Palt - 2Ps2d also use gtkdialog? I remember seeing it, but I never added it to the
Index of programs using gtkdialog
Is there anything which distinguishes each of these programs from the others?

disciple wrote:I think you're also reinventing TrayManager

No. That was discover'able.

disciple wrote:I presume your one uses gtkdialog... does 2Palt - 2Ps2d also use gtkdialog?
Is there anything which distinguishes each of these programs from the others?

They all do.
2Palt - 2Ps2d is the most polished, feature-rich and easy to use with a couple of little issues (for my taste - posted there). It also has a sister app that allows for easy desktop icon additions

This one, I find a bid more "involved" in button addition but still fairly simple and with better flexibility on the looks. Is also more "graphical" in the configuration options.

TrayManager is even more "involved" and in contrast to the above 2, is focusing on the existing app tray of JWM, but when I tried it just made my jwm tray disappear and the second panel feature did no work. So I did not look at it any further . I'm sure is something simple probably specific to the pupplet I used, but since the jwm tray may change from pupplet to pupplet has more room for the things to go sour.

But I'm sure that other people may have different reviews on the above...

Hi Mavrothal, this is a cool application. Can you suggest how I could modify a button to open a mounted drive? (I don't use desktop drive icons but it would be handy to have the hidden rox panel available as a shortcut to view the contents of a drive).
cheers!

Hi greengeek,

If it's for personsal use rather than with your distro, you might have a look at another big winner from seaside
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69830

I click the icon in my rox panel (per screen shot) and get the drive icons shown (and the tray toggler to hide/show them).

My regards

greengeek wrote:Hi Mavrothal, this is a cool application. Can you suggest how I could modify a button to open a mounted drive? (I don't use desktop drive icons but it would be handy to have the hidden rox panel available as a shortcut to view the contents of a drive).
cheers!

Wow! I had forgotten about this.
Anyway, the command to open a mounted volume, say sdb1, is if not mounted at the time, the command is or just call pmount to mount and open any available volume.
Use the icon of your choice
You'll need one entry per drive.
Remember that boot volume is mounted at /mnt/home which is a link to /initrd/mnt/dev_save

mavrothal wrote:Use the icon of your choice
You'll need one entry per drive.

Many thanks!

mavrothal wrote:if not mounted at the time, the command is

Code: Select all

rox /root/.pup_event/drive_sdb1

or just call pmount to mount and open any available volume.

Is it possible to concatenate commands in one line so that I can use a roxpanel button to do the following all in one go:
- create mountpoint (mkdir -p /mnt/sdb1)
- mount the device (mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1)
- display the contents (rox /mnt/sdb1)

Or would I need to put those commands into a script and use the button to call that script?
cheers!

greengeek wrote:Is it possible to concatenate commands in one line so that I can use a roxpanel button to do the following all in one go

Yes. Just separate them with semicolon ( ; )

New version 1.1 will autohide panel properly in puppies with JWM version 2.3 or newer.
Will fail to autohide with older JWM version (2.2.x or older)
Get it from the top post

Hi mavrothal,

Thanks for the JWM application-panel with GUI control. I was looking for a way to add a second panel in Tahrpup64 without (a) using something other than jwm window manager and (b) conflicting with or being overwritten by radky's fine jwmdesk utility. Your application met both criteria.

The computer it was to be installed to is an Acer D270 with screen resolution of 1024 x 600. From the versions you've made available, I had to decide between v0.9, designed for netbooks, and version 1.1 created for puppies built after 7/2015. I downloaded both: just in case I had to do a hard shutdown. But version 1.1 worked well OOTB -- surviving modification of jwm's tray launcher via jwmdesk and rebooting.

In order to avoid having to repeat much of the above on a different thread discussing adding additional "trays",http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 074#891074, I'll mention that it functions by creating a file structure in /root named something like ".jwmrc-tray2"*. jwmdesk's focus is only on jwmrc-tray.

* Sorry, from memory. Not posting from that computer. Edit: I'm baaack!. And amazed, My memory of a technical name was correct.

Thanks, again.

mikesLr

Thank you.
Though I would think that with PuppyDesktop/pTheme in the new puppies this little old app should be soon obsolete.

Hi mavrothal,

I had some concern about the age of your app before installing it; and was concerned even more as Tahrpup64 is 64-bit. But I always run Pupmode 13 w/o Automatic-Save, and when trying out questionable software have a backup SaveFile with at least my basic settings. [The Acer D270 has the Cedarview PowerVR poulsbo graphics chip, requiring xorgwizard be run and choices be remembered before desktop is reached).

Thank you for bringing to my attention ptheme. I wondered how 01micko obtained the second panel in Slacko 6.3 but haven't explored that Pup much.Started to on my Desktop computer but then got detoured by deciding to update the Pups on the Acer and discovered that the new Tahrpups produce better results than the new Slackos. On that computer the new Slackos generate "ghosts" when windows are moved.

My explorations begin with a Pup and then figuring out what and how to run applications on it. As indicated in my previous post I was searching for a way to add a second panel to Tahrpup which uses jwmdesk. Before discovering your applications-panel I dissembled jwmdesk. I know sufficient Bash to be able to follow the logic of applications -- but not enough to be able to write applications, at least without spending days consulting manuals. At any rate, neither jwmdesk's GUI nor its internal structure suggested an easy way to handle a second panel. Not that it couldn't be modified to do so. Just not by me.

ptheme's GUI suggests it already has that capability. I haven't yet tried installing it into the Tahrpups on the Acer.

mikesLr

mikeslr wrote: ptheme's GUI suggests it already has that capability. I haven't yet tried installing it into the Tahrpups on the Acer.

I do not know if there are any pets around for this. Is 2 directories at woof-CE repo I think. Even then I'm not sure you can install pTheme/puppydeskt on top of Tahrpup without breaking anything