[949] in linux-announce channel archive
TkGoodStuff4.0b4 desktop button panel
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lars Wirzenius)
Tue Aug 22 06:40:47 1995
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 15:20:26 +0300
From: Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi>
To: linux-announce@vger.rutgers.edu
From: markcrim@merv.philosophy.lsa.umich.edu (Mark Crimmins)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Subject: TkGoodStuff4.0b4 desktop button panel
Organization: University of Michigan
Approved: linux-announce@news.ornl.gov (Lars Wirzenius)
Followup-to: comp.os.linux.x
[This is a "late beta" release, which means that I think it's in good
shape and that I don't envision many changes; but I want to encourage
suggestions, bug reports, etc. Changes from earlier versions are
sketched below.]
TkGoodStuff for X windows is an alarm clock, biff, modem
dialer/network indicator, and whatever else you want.
TkGoodStuff produces a button (etc.) panel (e.g., a button bar, a
stack of bars, a stack of buttons, bars and stacks of bars,
etc.---vertical or horizontal as you please). It is designed to be
easily configured and modified in the user's ~/.tkgoodstuffrc file.
The main envisioned use is as an always-on-top destop utility to serve
the user's common needs for indicators and buttons. (The name is
chosen after fvwm's GoodStuff module, whose limitations---even though
it's very nice---led me to start on this.)
You can easily configure buttons to execute simple tasks, and with
Tcl/Tk scripting, you can write "clients" which do fancier things.
Some "clients" are included:
-- analog/digital alarm clock
-- biff (mail checker)
-- calendar/alarm support (using Ical-generated calendars)
-- PPP (or SLIP or TERM) net dialer/status indicator
-- POP/IMAP mail fetch scheduler.
One scenario (much like my home set-up): you power-up your home Linux
system and log into X-windows. Your TkGoodStuff button bar has the
Clock, the Net button (indicating "Net down"), the Biff button
(indicating "No Mail"), and buttons labelled "Weather", "Netscape",
"Telnet to Work", and "Shut Down". You click on the Net button, and a
Dialer window opens; you are informed of the dialing status as the
modem is dialed and you are logged in to your PPP network link; the
Dialer window disappears and now the Net button indicates "Net up".
Automatically, your POP/IMAP mail fetch program gets new mail from
your server, and in seconds the Biff button beeps and indicates "New
Mail". You click on the Biff button to launch your mail program (such
as exmh), send off a reply or two, close you mail program, and click
on the Net button to terminate the network connection. Finally you
click on the "Shut Down" button and your computer is halted, ready to
be powered off.
Another scenario (much like my office set-up): you have a little
digital alarm clock "No Mail"/"New Mail" indicator in a small corner
of your screen, not taking up much real estate. You get notified not
only of new mail but also of appointments you have entered in your
"Ical" calendar.
Documentation including screen-shots is available on the WWW
at:
http://www.umich.edu/~markcrim/tkgoodstuff/tkgoodstuff.html
Availability:
ftp://merv.philosophy.lsa.umich.edu/pub/
The last announce release was numbered 0.2. The new "4.0b4" version
number means: fourth beta release that works with tk4.0.
CHANGES
-------
For those who checked out earlier versions, the main changes are bug
fixes, a rewrite of the button code to "feel" better and to be more
flexible, colored icon (including xpm) support (requires an extended
wish interpreter; pointers are included in the doc), and a GUI
"Dialer" program to dial your modem. The "CHANGES" file in the
distribution has further details.
-------
Mark Crimmins
markcrim@umich.edu
--
Mark Crimmins markcrim@umich.edu
UMich Philosophy Dept. 313 936-4933
--
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