Re: 'fmenu' - program launcher

On 31 Dec 2001 12:11:47 +1030
Robert Mibus <mibus@bigpond.com> wrote:
> > I guessed as much. :-) Actually, more serious from the usabiity point
> of
> > view is that the three-column display doesn't fit very well on to the
> > 240-pixel-wide iPAQ screen. Either the cells need to get narrower, or
> > there need to be only two columns, or I need to start running my iPAQ
> in
> > landscape mode. Needless to say I'd prefer to avoid the latter
> option.
> Try the latest-and-greatest - same URL, again. It uses VBoxes instead of
> a GtkTable. It also solves the scrollbar issue someone else mentioned.
> What is the 'accepted' way of creating a widget just for it's size? I
> want to insert extra rows into the list (otherwise if you only have
> three items they'll take up the whole height), and to pad it ATM I'm
> using GtkLabels with no text. What *should* I use? Or should I force the
> size of the buttons?

IMHO we can specify restrictions, e.g. an icon has to be <= 50x50 pixels,
a label not more than #num characters and so on. It cannot be expected
that we deal with every possible and maybe insane combination.
On the other hand it should still be as flexible as possible for example
to be able to change aspect ratios (landscape <-> portrait) or other
resolutions. The goal should be a system that can also run on new PDAs
with bigger/smaller screens, other color depths, etc. (for example
something like a web-pad or new mobile phones or ...).

> > Oh, and it might be nice if it popped up some kind of error dialog
> when it
> > fails to launch an application.
> It can't atm, it only calls system("program &") which always returns 0.
> Later, it will. Or someone can do a patch and save me the trouble ;-)

OK, I'll have a look at it. I already noticed that every started program
is accompanied by an instance of "sh". A normal fork/exec cycle would be
much better and not hard to add.
I'll se what I can do and so you a patch ASAP ;)

> Thanks for the feedback.
Sure!
That's what it's all about ;)

> (Should this go in CVS somewhere? I can have a local CVS tree but can't
> host it myself so it's no good to anyone else. I have a sf.net account
> called 'mibus' if that matters).
I will talk to Jamey how we can solve this.
There is even more to do.
We should also have an FTP server where the sub-project's directories can
be maintained by their respective maintainers. Same should be true for the
web site. And last but least the CVS server with the sub-projects as
modules.
Sadly the SourceForge installation on handhelds.org is currently broken.

> mibus
CU
  nils faerber

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