TkDesk User's Guide
Originally written by Christian Bolik, now maintained by
J. Chris Coppick, jchris@znet.com
Version 1.3, 14 September 1999
TkDesk is a graphical, highly configurable and powerful desktop man-
ager for UNIX and the X Window System. This document is meant to be a
comprehensive guide to the functions, services and configuration pos-
sibilities offered by TkDesk. Please also take a look at the CHANGES
file for latest news. A list of answers to frequently asked questions
is also included. The "official unofficial" TkDesk homepage on the
Web is at . There is
also a mailing list dedicated to TkDesk available at major-
domo@lists.stanford.edu. To join this list simply send an email with
an empty subject line and the body "subscribe tkdesk-list".
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Acknowledgments
1.2 Using TkDesk's Help System
1.3 Command Line Options
2. The File Browser Window
2.1 The Menu Bar
2.1.1 TkDesk Menu
2.1.2 File Menu
2.1.3 Directory Menu
2.1.4 Commands Menu
2.1.5 Bookmarks Menu
2.1.6 Options Menu
2.1.7 Help Menu
2.2 The Button Bar
2.3 The Path Entry
2.4 The File Listboxes
2.4.1 Handling of the Listboxes (Bindings)
2.5 The Status Bar
3. The File List Window
4. File Operations
4.1 File Information
4.2 Copying, Moving and Deleting Files
4.3 Finding Files
5. Cascading Directory Popup Menus
6. The Application Bar
7. The Built-in Editor
7.1 Marks
8. Using the TkDesk Server
9. Configuration of TkDesk
9.1 Configuration Files
9.1.1 AppBar
9.1.2 ButtonBar
9.1.3 Commands
9.1.4 Directories
9.1.5 FileTags
9.1.6 Local
9.1.7 Popups
9.1.8 Sounds
9.1.9 System
9.2 The TkDesk API
9.3 Shortcuts
9.4 Utilities
10. Frequently Asked Questions
10.1 How can I change the position of the application bar?
10.2 Can I have transparent icons?
10.3 How can I change the background colour of the icons and desk items?
10.4 How can I have a different set of desk items on each virtual screen?
10.4.1 FVWM and similar or derived window managers
10.4.2 CDE window manager
10.5 How do I configure FVWM mini-icons for TkDesk?
10.6 Configuring the appbar or popup menus to execute (export foo=bar; program;) doesn't work.
10.7 Composing characters doesn't work in TkDesk's editor.
10.8 TkDesk's layout seems to be screwed. I can't get the appbar displayed anymore.
10.9 On my RedHat 5.x system the appbar clock shows the wrong time.
10.10 TkDesk complains about "invalid command name wm" and won't start up
10.11 I cannot launch other Tcl/Tk applications from within TkDesk
10.12 I'd like TkDesk to do this and that. How can I achieve this?
10.13 Is there a TkDesk mailing list?
10.14 Where can I find out more about Tcl/Tk?
11. Tips and Tricks
11.1 TkDesk and XEmacs
______________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
TkDesk is a graphical desktop manager for UNIX (with a slight emphasis
on Linux, but it also runs just as well on AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, SGI
Irix and other UNIX flavors) and the X Window System. It offers a
very complete set of file operations and services, plus gives the user
the ability to configure most aspects of TkDesk in a very powerful
way. The reason for this is the use of the Tcl scripting language as
the configuration and (for the greatest part of TkDesk) implementation
language. This makes TkDesk not just configurable but truly
programmable. TkDesk has been influenced by various other systems and
file managers: NeXT, for laying out the file browser windows, Apple
Finder, for the idea of file annotations and, (shock horror), Windows
95, for some other (of course minor and unimportant) inspirations.
This is a brief overview of the most prominent features of TkDesk:
o Arbitrary number of automatically refreshed file browsers and file
list windows,
o Configurable file-specific popup-menus,
o Drag and drop,
o Files and directories may also be dropped onto the root window,
a.k.a. desktop,
o Configurable application bar, with several displays and cascaded
popup menus for each button, files can also be dropped here,
o History of visited directories, opened files, executed commands,
and others, which is automatically saved to disk,
o Find files through their annotation, name, contents, size, age, or
other criteria,
o A trash can for safe deletion of files and directories,
o Calculation of disk usage for directory hierarchies,
o All file operations (find, copy, disk usage, etc.) are carried out
in the background,
o Traversal of directory hierarchies through recursive cascaded
menus,
o Bookmarks, create menu entries for often used files/directories,
o Comprehensive hypertextish online help,
o Built-in multi-buffer and undo-capable editor,
o Remote control of XEmacs,
o Close coupling with Netscape Navigator for displaying HTML files or
selected URLs,
o Sound support,
o Powerful on-the-fly configuration of nearly all aspect of TkDesk
using Tcl/Tk, this also allows the Tcl-literate to extend TkDesk in
arbitrary ways,
o Free of charge! But see the file COPYING, or menu entry
Help/License for information on usage and redistribution of TkDesk.
1.1. Acknowledgments
TkDesk uses a number of other freely available packages without which
TkDesk would not have been possible. I'd like to say many thanks to
the following people:
o Chris Sterritt for setting up and managing the TkDesk mailing list
(at the old location majordomo@mrj.com, this one's disabled since a
couple of weeks),
o Alan V. Shackelford for seamlessly taking over the list to his
machine and responsibility (the list is now at
majordomo@shaknet.clark.net),
o Ken Hornstein for his wonderful netscape-remote package,
o Ioi Kim Lan for making an XPM image reader for Tk available,
o George Howlett for his great BLT, of which parts are used by
TkDesk,
o Michael McLennan for his massively useful [incr tcl],
o John Ousterhout for Tcl/Tk, which is definitely the best thing
since sliced bread,
o Greg Hankins and Matt Welsh for putting together the most wonderful
linuxdoc-sgml package,
o and of course, Linus Torvalds whose Linux kind of changed my life,
really!
And a very big thank you to the growing TkDesk user community, which
provides me with a constant flow of bug reports (getting less now
:-)), suggestions for enhancements of TkDesk, and lots of motivation
and encouragement.
Special thanks to Chuck Robey for revising a previous version of this
guide.
1.2. Using TkDesk's Help System
If you check menu entry Options/Use Netscape for Help, TkDesk will use
that for displaying this User's Guide on-line. Otherwise, to reduce
overhead, TkDesk uses its own help system. It features hypertext
links, context sensitivity (which is not yet fully utilised by TkDesk)
and full text search.
The help window consists of four areas:
1. A listbox listing all the section headings. A section can be
selected by pressing the left mouse button,
2. the text display, which contains the actual help text,
3. a text entry field in which a regular expression may be entered
(such as [Ff]eatures). After hitting Return, the whole help text
is searched for this expression. Pressing Return again continues
the search,
4. three buttons: "Print" prints the complete help volume, "Back"
jumps back after a hypertext link has been followed (see next
paragraph), and "Close" to close the help window.
Text that is displayed blue in the help window is a hypertext link.
When the left mouse button is clicked over such a link the display
will automatically change to the referenced section. You can jump
back by pressing the "Back" button described above.
The following keys are bound when the mouse pointer is inside the help
window:
Tab
Moves to the next section.
Shift-Tab
Moves to the previous section.
Control-Tab
Moves to the first section.
Control-Shift-Tab
Moves to the last section.
Up, Down
Scrolls one line up/down.
Page up, Page down
Scrolls one page up/down.
Control-Home
Jumps to start of help text.
Control-End
Jumps to end of help text.
Meta/Alt-b
Equivalent to pressing the "Back" button.
Meta/Alt-c, Escape
Equivalent to pressing the "Close" button.
1.3. Command Line Options
Usually TkDesk is started simply by executing the command "tkdesk"
from the shell prompt or your X initialisation file. However, you may
specify the following options to this command:
-configdir dir
Reads the configuration from directory dir instead of ~/.tkdesk.
-default
Reads the default configuration of TkDesk instead of the user's
one in ~/.tkdesk.
-iconic
Iconifies all file browser and file list windows created by
TkDesk during start-up.
-layout file
Reads the window layout information from file file instead of
the default ~/.tkdesk/_layout.
-startdir dir
If this option is given, the first file browser will open with
directory dir.
-twm
Don't use icon windows when file browser or list windows are
iconified. Some window managers liek twm cannot handle these
properly.
For example, the command "tkdesk -twm -iconic" tells Tkdesk to not use
icon windows and start with all windows iconified.
2. The File Browser Window
The file browser window is the largest window when TkDesk is started
for the first time. It contains a menu bar, a configurable button bar
(for fast access to the most often used file operations and other
functions), an entry field (displaying the current path), a horizontal
scrollbar, a certain number of file listboxes (three by default), and
a status and information bar.
2.1. The Menu Bar
The following sections describe the entries of the individual menus of
the file browser windows.
2.1.1. TkDesk Menu
The "TkDesk" menu contains the following entries:
New Browser...
Asks for a directory for which to open a new file browser
window. If the directory is the empty string, the operation is
cancelled. By default the checkbox "In Browser" is checked, but
if you uncheck it a file list window will be opened instead.
The button to the right of the text entry field gives access to
a menu containing previously visited directories.
Clone Window
Creates a new file browser window with the same directory as the
current one (that is, the directory of the file browser from
which this menu entry was invoked).
Display AppBar/Hide AppBar
Opens the application bar if it had been closed before, or hides
(closes) it otherwise. This menu entry's label changes based on
whether the AppBar is currently displayed or not.
Configuration
This is a submenu from which individual or all configuration
files of TkDesk can be opened to modify them.
Auto Save
Here you can select which parts of TkDesk are automatically
saved periodically and when TkDesk exits.
Save All Now
Saves all parts of TkDesk's configuration no matter what the
settings in the previous submenu.
Close Window
Closes the file browser window.
Quit
Quits TkDesk.
2.1.2. File Menu
This menu provides all the usual file operations plus entries for
finding files. The contained menu entries are:
Information
Opens a file information window for each currently selected
file. This window, which can also be used to add annotations to
files, is described in section ``File Information''.
New File...
Asks for the name of a file which will be created in the current
directory of the file browser or list. If "Open in Editor" is
checked the new file will automatically be opened in the
configured editor.
New Directory...
Asks for the name of a directory which will be created in the
current directory of the file browser or list. If "Open after
Creation" is checked the current window will switch to the new
directory after it is created.
Open
Opens the selected files using their default action, which
corresponds to the first action defined in their popup menus as
configured in the "Popups" configuration file.
Print...
Asks for a command to print the currently selected files. The
names of the selected files will be appended to the command.
The default command can be defined in the configuration file
"System".
Copy, Move, Link...
Opens a dialog box for copying, moving, linking, symbolic
linking etc. of files. This dialog window is described in more
detail in section ``Copying, Moving and Deleting Files''.
Rename...
For each selected file, TkDesk asks for a new name. Before
actually renaming TkDesk checks for an existing file with the
same name.
Delete...
Opens a dialog to delete files. The section ``Copying, Moving
and Deleting Files'' gives more details.
Find Files...
Opens a dialog window which can be used to search for files,
using a variety of characteristics. This dialog is described in
more detail in section ``Finding Files''.
Find Annotation...
Lets you search for files with a certain annotation. More
details in section ``Finding Files''.
Copy To X Selection
Copies the complete names of all currently selected files (i.e.
including their paths) to the X clipboard. They can then be
pasted into any other X application using the middle mouse
button.
Copy Names Only
Same as previous one, but copies only the files' names (i.e. not
their paths.)
History
Displays a submenu containing recently opened files.
Close Window
Closes the window.
2.1.3. Directory Menu
The main purpose of this menu is to select directories which are to be
opened. It also manages TkDesk's trash can. The menu contains the
following entries:
Open...
Asks for a directory. A new file list or file browser window
will be created, baesed on the setting of the "In Browser"
checkbutton.
New...
Asks for the name of a directory which will be created in the
current directory of the file browser or list.
Home Directory
Changes the directory of the window from which this entry is
invoked to the user's home directory.
A number of path entries
These can be configured in the configuration file Directories.
See section ``Configuration of TkDesk'' for details on how to do
this. If one of these menu entries is invoked, the path of the
file browser will change to that directory. If such an entry
is invoked while at the same time pressing the "Control" key, a
new file list window will be created (if the option "Always In
Browser" is selected a file browser window will be created),
displaying the contents of the selected directory. This feature
applies to all menus that contain directory names!
Trees
Contains two cascaded submenus: "Home" and "Root". The contents
of these submenus is dynamically generated and corresponds to
the directory hierarchy rooted either at the user's home
directory or at "/". Selecting an entry from these submenus
changes the directory of the window to the selected directory.
Pressing Control at the same time opens a new window with this
directory.
Open Trash Can
Opens a file list window displaying the contents of the trash
can. When this window is iconified and TkDesk uses icon windows
the icon can be used as a Mac-like trash can.
Empty Trash Can
Empties the trash can after confirmation from the user. This
erases the files contained in the trash can for good!
History
Displays a submenu containing recently opened directories.
2.1.4. Commands Menu
This menu provides entries to execute commands either once or
periodically, edit files, and provides some very basic form of "job
control". Its entries are:
Execute...
Asks for a command to execute. The button to the right of the
command entry contains a history of previously executed
commands. Selecting one of these copies its name to the entry
widget. Checking the "View Output" button will open an editor
window after the command completed displaying its output (stdout
and stderr).
Execute as root...
The same as the previous entry but TkDesk will ask you for the
root password before executing the command. The command will
then run under root permission.
Periodic Execution...
Opens a window which can be used to execute a command and watch
its output periodically. If the "Don't execute" checkbutton is
selected, the execution is paused.
Job Control
Opens a window which allows to stop, terminate, kill etc.
processes which have been started by TkDesk.
Environment...
Opens the "Edit Environment" dialog which can be used to display
and modify TkDesk's environment variables. Programs and
commands started from TkDesk after any modification in this
dialog has been made will pick up the modified environment.
Edit File...
Asks for the name of a file to edit, and opens it in the editor
you selected in the "System" configuration file (defaults to the
built-in editor). The "Browse..." button opens a file selector
from which a file may be selected.
New File
Opens a new blank editor window.
Edit Selected
Opens all currently selected files in one new editor window.
Buffers
Displays a submenu of all current editor buffers (both files and
command output).
A number of custom command entries
These can be defined in the configuration file Commands. See
section ``Configuration of TkDesk'' for details on how to do
this. If one of these menu entries is invoked, the
corresponding command will be executed.
History
Displays a submenu containing commands recently executed.
2.1.5. Bookmarks Menu
This menu lets you create bookmarks for often used files and
directories. To do this, select at least one file/directory and
invoke the "Add Bookmark" menu entry. The name(s) of the selected
files and directories will now appear alphabetically sorted in the
"Bookmarks" menu. You can remove any bookmark from the menu by
selecting its corresponding entry from the "Remove Bookmark" submenu.
The bookmarks you add will be automatically saved, if the "Bookmarks"
entry of the "Auto Save" submenu contained in the "TkDesk" menu is
selected (which is the default).
2.1.6. Options Menu
The Options menu lets you configure many aspects of TkDesk "on the
fly". The entries are:
Long Listing
Select this to let the details of all files and directories be
displayed in the file listboxes. This slightly decreases
performance and for that reason is switched off by default.
Show All Files
Whether to show files in the file lists whose name start with
".".
Add Icons
If selected, small icons will be displayed to the left of the
file names in the file listboxes. Turn this off for faster
scrolling.
Folders On Top
If selected (default) folders will always appear on top of the
file lists.
Append Type Char
Whether to append a file-type specific character to the file
names. This is mainly intended for monochrome displays and is
then automatically selected.
Single Click (Dirs)
Lets you open directories with a single click of the left mouse
button. Individual directories can still be selected by
pressing Control at the same time.
Always In Browser
If this option is selected, the "In Browser" checkbutton of the
"Open Directory" dialog will always be selected. Control-
Doubleclick on a directory will open a file browser instead of a
file list window.
Status in List Windows
Whether the singly columned file list windows should have a
status bar as well.
Sort by ...
Sort all file listboxes by one of these criteria: Name, Name
(fold, meaning that upper and lower case characters will be
"folded", i.e. disregard case when sorting), Size, Date,
Extension, or Don't Sort to display directory entries as they
are read from disk.
Strip
If this is selected, and the current path of the browser is
somewhere under your home directory, the leftmost file listbox
will contain your home directory rather than the root directory.
This speeds up the display of directory hierarchies under your
home directory.
Overwrite Always
If this option is selected, TkDesk won't ask if the destination
file already exists when copying or moving files.
Really Delete
Relates to the deletion of files. If this option is selected,
the "Delete Files" dialog box will always have the "Delete
permanently" checkbutton selected by default.
Quick Drag'n'Drop
Normally when you drop files onto a file list, the copy dialog
appears. If this option is selected, dropped files will be moved
to the destination directory without further questions. If
Control is pressed during dropping, the files will be copied. If
the drop target is the trash can, TkDesk will ask if the files
are to be deleted "really".
Sort History
This option determines whether the history menus are to be
sorted alphabetically or not.
TkDesk Server
Start or stop the built-in server to remote execute TkDesk
commands. See also section ``Using the TkDesk Server''.
Dialogs at Pointer
If selected, TkDesk will always try to place new windows right
under the mouse pointer.
Autoraise AppBar
Whether to raise the AppBar above any obscuring window when it
is entered by the mouse pointer.
Use Sound
If you have sound working with TkDesk on your machine, you can
temporarily disable sound by selecting this option. Handy when
playing Audio CDROMs, for instance.
Number Of Listboxes
This relates to the number of listboxes in the file browser
window. Between 1 and 6 can be displayed, though 18 would
theoratically not be a problem.
Balloon Help
Whether to display a small window at the mouse pointer if it is
placed over part of TkDesk, e.g. an AppBar button.
Use Netscape for Help
Whether to use Netscape rather than the built-in help viewer for
displaying TkDesk online help.
The settings of these options are by default automatically saved to
~/.tkdesk/_options. This can be disabled by deselecting the "Options"
entry of the "TkDesk/Auto Save" submenu.
2.1.7. Help Menu
This menu tries to give you some help with using TkDesk. It also
contains entries for displaying the list of FAQs, recently made
changes to TkDesk, and the license for using and distributing TkDesk:
User's Guide
Displays the TkDesk User's Guide either in the built-in help
viewer or using Netscape (see previous section).
Manual Page...
Asks for a command for which to display the system's manual page
in an editor window.
Getting Started
Displays the "Getting Started" guide.
TkDesk FAQ
Jumps directly to the FAQ section of the TkDesk help volume.
Changes
Displays recent changes to TkDesk. Make sure you invoke this
entry after upgrading to a newer version of TkDesk.
License
Restates that TkDesk is distributed under the GNU Public License
(GPL).
About TkDesk...
Some info about TkDesk (version, author etc.), plus a link to
the TkDesk web page.
2.2. The Button Bar
The button bar that's located right underneath the menu bar allows for
fast access to any of the commands of TkDesk. It's also possible to
configure each button individually to run customized Tcl scripts, that
e.g. work on the currently selected files. By default, the buttons in
the button bar provide access to the more often used functions of
TkDesk (copy, create, delete etc.). When you place the mouse button
over any of these buttons, a small help window will appear telling you
what this button does (provided the "Balloon Help" option is
activated).
The contents of this button bar can be defined via the configuration
file ButtonBar. See section ``Configuration of TkDesk'' and the
configuration file itself for details on how to do this. Note that by
not defining the variable tkdesk(button_bar) in that file or by not
defining tkdesk(small_button_bar) the button for file viewer or list
windows may be surpressed respectively.
2.3. The Path Entry
This entry field displays the current path of the file browser or file
list. You can also type directly into this field to change the display
to another directory. There is a sort of "auto-completion" available;
if you type only the first part of a directory's name and press
Control-Tab, its name will be automatically completed as far as
there's no ambiguity.
If you click the right mouse button over this field a popup menu
appears which lets you select any of the current directory's parent
directories and their subdirectories. You can also open files
directly from this popup menu.
The button to the right of the entry field contains a menu of the last
30 (default value this may be changed in the "System" configuration
file) directories you have visited. If you select one of these, the
current path of the browser will change to it. The "Control-trick" to
open the selected path in a new list window that's been described in
section ``Directories'' works here as well!
2.4. The File Listboxes
The main part of the file browser and list windows is taken up by the
file listboxes. Directories are by default displayed in blue with a
bold font, executable files in red and bold, and regular files in
black and a medium font. These settings as well as the color, font
and icons used for individual file types may be configured via the
FileTags configuration file. See section ``Configuration of TkDesk''
for details on how to do this.
Right above each listbox the name of the directory whose contents it
shows is displayed, together with the current file mask settings.
Clicking on this label reveals a menu with the following entries:
Refresh
Refreshes the listbox contents. Although TkDesk refreshes all
its file lists every 5 seconds (default), sometimes you may want
to have a file listbox instantaneously updated.
Set Mask...
Sets a mask for this listbox's display. For example, you can
configure the listbox to only display or select files matching
the pattern *.gif. Multiple masks separated by spaces may be
entered to display files matching any of these. A history menu
button for reusing masks previously entered is also provided, as
well as a checkbutton for inverting the mask's effect (i.e. only
files not matching the given mask will be displayed).
No Mask
Removes a previously activated file mask.
Disk Usage
Calculates the directory's disk usage, i.e. the number of
kilobytes (default) occupied by that directory and all its
subdirectories. A window will appear when the calculation is
complete, containing a sorted list of all subdirectories and
their individual disk usages. If you double-click on any of its
entries, a new file list window will appear displaying the
directory's contents. Clicking the right mouse button over any
of the directories displays its associated popup menu.
Free Space
Displays the space available in the file system of this
listbox's directory, using TkDesk's "Periodic Execution" window.
Execute here...
Asks for a command to execute in the directory displayed by this
listbox. All the usual TkDesk %-sequences to work with the
names of selected files may be used, e.g. %A to pass all
currently selected files to the command.
Execute as root...
The same as the previous one, except the command will be run
under root permission after asking you for the root password
(and you entered the correct one...).
Long Listing
Instead of just the file names displays a "long listing" i.e. a
listing containing all the details such as size, permission
bits, date and time of last modification etc.
Show All Files
Whether to display files starting with a dot (".") or not.
Inverse Order
Whether to invert the current sorting order.
Sort by...
This is identical to the entry of the same name in the menu
bar's "Options" menu, but affects this single listbox only.
Open List Window
If this listbox is part of a file browser window, open a new
list window displaying this listbox's directory.
Open Browser
Else, open a browser with this directory.
This menubutton can also be used to drag and drop files, as well as to
drag the directory displayed in the associated listbox to another
target, e.g. the root window by pressing the middle mouse button over
the listbox title menu button.
2.4.1. Handling of the Listboxes (Bindings)
The handling of the file browser windows is very similar to that of
the NeXT file manager: when you double click on a directory, the
listbox to the right of the current one will display this directory's
contents. You can open a directory in this listbox, and the listbox
to the right of this one will display its contents. This way you can
browse through complete directory hierarchies, while having instant
access to the contents of the complete directory tree. When the number
of opened directories exceeds the number of visible listboxes, you can
scroll the listboxes with the horizontal scrollbar which is located
right above the file listboxes.
Files are selected in the file listboxes using the left mouse button.
A single click selects a single file, deselecting all other files. If
the Control key is pressed simultaneously, the old selection will be
retained. By dragging the mouse pointer over a file list, while at the
same time pressing the left mouse button, a set of files can be
selected. Shift-doubleclick selects all files in that file list.
Holding down the shift button extends the current selection unto that
file (a.k.a. "range-selection").
Note that if the option "Single Click (Dirs)" is set in the "Options"
menu a single click on a directory will suffice open it. In this case
you need to use Control-Click to select a single directory.
A double click on any listbox item performs its default action. For
directories this is to open it, for executables this is to execute it,
and for files it invokes the first entry of the corresponding popup
menu as defined in the "Popups" configuration file (see below). If the
Control key is pressed while double-clicking a directory, a new file
list or file browser window (depending on the setting of the "Always
In Browser" option) is created displaying the contents of that
directory. For files, a dialog box will appear asking for a command
to execute on that file.
Files can be dragged by pressing the middle mouse button over any
selected file. If no file is selected, the clicked-over file will be
selected. Files can be dropped by releasing the mouse button over any
other file listbox and the menubutton above them, over windows of the
built-in editor, over the application bar (if the corresponding button
has been configured to handle dropped files), over iconified file
browsers and file lists and in general over any other application
supporting the file protocol of the BLT package's drag and drop
implementation. Valid drop targets can be identified by looking at
the window that is displayed while files are dragged: the window's
relief appears raised if over a valid target, flat if not.
The right mouse button is used in the file listboxes to access the
file-specific popup menu. Every popup menu contains a submenu, labeled
with the file's name, which contains entries for the most common file
operations. The remaining entries of the menu can be configured via
the configuration file Popups. See section ``Configuration of TkDesk''
for details on how to do this.
Since version 1.1 the file listboxes may also be fully controlled
using the keyboard:
Up-/Down Arrow
Move the selection one file up/down.
Page Up/Down
Move the selection one page up/down.
Home/End
Move the selection to first/last item in the listbox.
A-Z
Select the first file matching the character pressed, cycle
through subsequent matches on repeated pressing of the same key.
Return
Open selected file.
Menu (the key left to the right Control key on W95
keyboards)" Display the currently selected file's popup menu,
the menu itself may also be operated using Up/Down, Return, and
Esc.
Backspace
Change directory to the parent directory.
F11
Open the current file listbox's menu.
2.5. The Status Bar
The status bar is located at the bottom edge of file browser windows.
If "Status in List Windows" is selected in the "Options" menu file
list windows will contain a status bar as well.
It displays either
o the current state of TkDesk,
o the amount of free space in the current file system,
o details about the currently selected file, or
o number and total size of currently selected files.
3. The File List Window
The file list window is basically a more compact version of the file
browser window. It displays only one listbox, which results in the
fact that the contents of opened directories are always displayed in
the same listbox, and it doesn't have a status bar unless "Status in
List Windows" is set in the "Options" menu. Its advantage is that it
is more quickly created than a file browser window and occupies less
space on your screen. My usual setup is that I have one file browser
and lots of file lists opened.
The menu bar of the file list windows is also more compact, but allows
access to all menus of the file browser through submenus of the
"Others" menu. This menu contains one additional entry to open a file
browser window displaying this file list's directory.
4. File Operations
4.1. File Information
The "File Information" window displays detailed information about a
file. It can also be used to change the owner or access-permissions of
a file. In addition, an annotation to a file can be added here.
The following information is displayed:
Path
The path of the file.
Size
The size of the file in bytes.
Modified
When the file was last modified. By clicking on the button
displaying the date file can be "touched", ie. their
modification timestamp will be set to the current time.
Owner
Displays the owner of the file. By clicking the button
displaying the owner, the owner can be changed to another user.
Group
Displays the group ownership of the file. By clicking the button
displaying the group's name, the group can be changed.
Mode
Here the access permissions are displayed in "ls -l" style. The
first three button correspond to the rights of the owner (r: may
read, w: may write, x: may execute or open the directory), the
second three buttons to the rights of the group, and the last
three buttons to every one else's rights. The "x" buttons are
special in that they cycle through four settings: x for
executable, s for set user/group id and executable, S for set id
only, and - for not executable. Note that using the right mouse
button toggles between - and x only. Clicking the middle mouse
button over any of these buttons copies its current setting to
the corresponding button in the other two groups. If the
settings of any of these buttons is changed, the "Change Mode"
button at the bottom edge of the window must be clicked to
actually change the file's permissions.
Links
Number of (hard) links to this file.
Type
Tries to give some information about the file's contents. TkDesk
uses the shell command file for this.
In the "Annotation" text field you can enter any remarks about the
file. This annotation will be saved when the "Close" button is
pressed. Files having annotations attached to them will appear
underlined in the file listboxes, and their popup menu will contain
the first few words of that annotation as an "informative" menu entry.
If the window displays information about a file an additional button
labeled "Disk Usage" is provided, which calculates the disk usage of
the hierarchy rooted at that directory. The entries of the "Disk
Usage" window can be double-clicked to open new file list windows.
4.2. Copying, Moving and Deleting Files
These functions can be accessed from the "File" menu, among others.
There is one dialog for copying, moving and linking files (plus an
arbitrary number of user-defined actions such as diff and patch, as
configured in the "Popups" config file), one dialog for renaming files
(which does nothing else than moving the file to its new name), and
one dialog for deleting files.
The "Rename" dialog is very straight-forward and probably does not
need further explanation. The "Copy etc." dialog contains the obvious
source and destination entry fields, plus a checkbutton labeled "all
selected files" if more that one file was selected when this dialog
was opened. If this checkbutton is selected (default) the operation
will be applied on all selected files. If it is not checked, each
file will be handled individually. The "Skip" button can then be used
for skipping individual files.
The "Delete" dialog also contains this checkbutton, plus a checkbutton
labeled "Delete permanently". If this checkbutton is selected, the
files will not be moved to the trash can but will be really and
ultimately deleted!! The default setting of this checkbutton can be
set from the "Options" menu.
4.3. Finding Files
The "File" menu contains two entries for finding files: "Find
Files..." and "Find Annotation...". Files can be annotated through
their "Info" dialog (accessible from the "File" menu or from their
popup menu), see section ``File Information''.
"Find Annotation" enables you to look for an annotated file whose
annotation matches a certain regular expression (which can be as
simple as an ordinary string).
"Find Files" lets you look for files (or rather: let's you instruct
TkDesk to look for files) whose names match one or multiple patterns,
which are of a certain type (such as directory), which contain a
certain string, which are smaller or bigger than a certain number of
kilobytes or which are younger/older than a certain date. All fields
which are not left blank in this dialog will be combined with a
logical AND. This dialog is currently the only one utilizing the
balloon help capability of TkDesk, so for now I would like to refer
you to this. For instance, if you want to know how to enter the file
size you're looking for, place the mouse pointer over the "Size" entry
field without moving it for a few seconds.
Both "Find" dialogs display their results in the same file listboxes
that are used by the file list and browser windows, so the same
bindings described in section ``Handling of the Listboxes (Bindings)''
apply here as well!
5. Cascading Directory Popup Menus
Ugh, what a title... However, one of the most powerful features of
TkDesk are its "cascading directory popup menus." These are menus
that start from a given directory, contain submenus for each
subdirectories (and possibly menu entries for files), and that
dynamically add submenus as you traverse the menu. Hm, kinda hard to
explain, but pretty cool. These menus are the ones that are
accessible through menu entries "Directory/ Trees/ Home" and "Root",
by clicking the right mouse button in the file browser and list
window's path entry field, and through the popup menus of directories
(submenu "Subdirectories" and "... and Files"). They may also appear
in other places, depending on your configuration of TkDesk.
There are two special bindings available in these menus:
Control-Mousebutton-Release
On a menu entry associated with a directory this opens a new
file list window displaying this directory's contents. On a
file it asks for a command to run on this file by displaying the
"Open or Execute" dialog.
Left-and-Right-Mousebutton-Press
If the left and right mousebuttons are pressed simultaneously
over a menu entry, the menu disappear, the popup menu for the
associated file or directory is displayed.
Otherwise the directory or file that's selected from the menu is
opened using its default command.
6. The Application Bar
TkDesk provides you with an application bar for fast access to your
favorite applications, commands, directories etc., plus displays for
the current date and time, system load, and the status of your mailbox
and dialup link. It consists of an arbitrary number of buttons. Each
button (also the aforementioned displays) contains a popup menu which
can be accessed by pressing the right mouse button over any of them.
If you single-click the left mouse button over such a button, the
first entry from the corresponding popup menu defining a command to
execute will be invoked.
The first button (displaying a comet) could be called TkDesk's "Start
Button", although I would rather call it "Take-off Button" ;-). Its
popup menu contains entries for accessing TkDesk's most often used
functions, such as executing a command or opening a file list or
browser window, plus submenus for your bookmarks, the files you most
recently opened, and the directories you've last visited. The next
entry is a submenu labeled "Application Bar". Here you can configure
all aspects of the application bar, especially its position and
orientation. See my answer to the MFAQ ``How can I change the
position of the application bar?'' for more. The last entry labeled
"Configuration" contains another submenu which gives you fast access
to TkDesk's configuration files.
The second button gives you access to this User's Guide, and lets you
view manual pages, also making use of a running TkMan (which is a
hypertextified manual pager which is to be highly recommended). This
button also allows you to drop executables on it to automatically
display their manual page, if they have got one. Note that the
default value of the "Manual Page" dialog is the contents of the
current X selection, so this can be used for some sort of "context
sensitive" help.
All the other buttons can be configured by you! See section
``Configuration of TkDesk'' for details on how to do this.
7. The Built-in Editor
The built-in editor of TkDesk is meant to be a simple ASCII editor for
editing files smaller than, say, 500kB. A single editor window can
handle an arbitrary number of buffers each of which contains another
file. Files can either be loaded through the "File" menu of the editor
or by simply dropping one or more files on the text field of the
editor window from one of the file listboxes.
An editor window contains the following menus in its menu bar:
File
Contains entries to load, save, and print files, and to close
the current buffer, current window, or all windows.
Edit
The first entry provides access to the editor's "Undo"
functionality. Note that the undo buffer may contain a maximum
of 500 events. This menu also contains entries for managing
TkDesk's own text clipboard. Also provides entries to search for
text (regular expressions), replace text, or find the next
occurence of the currently selected text. The entry
"HyperSearch" is a special form of search: all matching lines
are displayed in a file listbox. If one of its entries is
clicked on, the editor automatically displays that line at the
top of the text field. This can be useful for jumping to
headings, function definitions etc. Oh yes, and the regular
expressions entered here are also saved with the other
histories.
Options
The "Auto Indent" option determines whether the cursor is
automatically indented after hitting Return. If the "Send to
Netscape" option is set, the current file will be loaded by
(maybe a running) Netscape each time it is saved. Useful when
editing HTML files.
Buffers
Lists the buffers of the editor window. Buffers can be selected
from this menu.
Configuration
This menu is only available when editing one of TkDesk's
configuration files. It lets you save the file and reload it
into TkDesk by selecting the corresponding menu entry or
pressing F5, or exactly the same plus closing the buffer by
invoking the next entry or pressing F6. This way configuration
files can be edited and reloaded very quickly into TkDesk.
The text area provides all the more common Motif- and Emacs-like key-
bindings (including Control-Space for selecting an area of the text).
Maybe it should be mentioned that Control-C/X/V do not work on the X
selection but on TkDesk's own clipboard. Use the middle mouse button
to paste from the X selection into TkDesk or from TkDesk into another
application.
7.1. Marks
Marks can be set with Control-[1-9], and be jumped to with
Alt/Meta-[1-9]. You can always jump back with Control-0. They work
across buffer and editor window boundaries, and are currently only
valid as long as the buffer in which the mark was set is open.
8. Using the TkDesk Server
In order to allow remote control of TkDesk, i.e. to allow programs
outside of TkDesk to have TkDesk perform certain tasks, TkDesk
implements a TCP/IP server that can be used to send Tcl scripts to
TkDesk. Whether this server is "up" or not is determined by the
option "TkDesk Server" that is to be found in the "Options" menu.
Currently, only programs running on the same machine as TkDesk may
connect to the server, but multiple TkDesk servers started from
different users may be running at the same time.
The server is a much faster way to send command to TkDesk then to use
the Tcl/Tk send command, as that requires a second Tcl/Tk shell
("wish") to be started to do the send. However, using a TCP/IP server
that's basically system-wide accessible to perform arbitrary command
under the accout of the user who started TkDesk and thus the server
brings with quite a big security risk that TkDesk tries to reduce by
keeping the port the TkDesk server uses secret. The port to be used
is calculated randomly at server start-up, and is saved into a file
that can only be read by the user who started TkDesk. To prevent
"guessing" of the port number a generated key is also stored in this
file that get passed to the server.
The client performing the communication with the TkDesk server gets
installed with TkDesk; its name is tkdeskclient. This command expects
exactly one argument which will be directly sent to the server and
evaluated there as a Tcl script. E.g. you could do a
tkdeskclient "dsk_view id"
to find out who you are :-).
Along with TkDesk a number of front-end shell scripts for tkdeskclient
are installed, which comprise of the following:
cd-tkdesk ?path?
Let's the currently active TkDesk file list or browser window
(i.e. the one the mouse pointer was over last) change its
directory to path if path is given, or returns the current
directory of the active window.
ed-tkdesk ?+linenum? ?file? ...
Without argument opens a new editor window, or loads all files
given as arguments into the editor (and into the same window if
you're using a multi-buffer capable editor, such as the built-in
one). If a file is preceded by +linenum, i.e. something like
+20, the built-in editor will position the cursor on the line
when displaying the file that's given in the following argument.
od-tkdesk ?dir?
If no arguments are given opens a file list window for the
current directory of the shell/program where the command was
issued, or opens a window for the directory specied in dir.
op-tkdesk ?file ...?
For each file performs its default action (the one defined first
in its corresponding popup menu as defined in "Popups"), or asks
for a command to execute if no files are given.
pop-tkdesk file
Displays the popup menu for file, as defined in the "Popups"
config file. The popup menu may also be controlled by the
keyboard: Up, Down, Return, and Esc keys do what you would
expect.
Note that all of these scripts are merely examples of possible usages
of tkdeskclient. Use your fantasy to find new and even more exciting
applications! :-)
9. Configuration of TkDesk
Currently, TkDesk can be configured only by editing ASCII files. This
is not necessarily a drawback, because this way you can add complex
Tcl/Tk procedures to the configuration files. GUI based configuration
is planned for one of the next releases.
If you don't know Tcl/Tk: Don't despair! For the biggest part of
TkDesk's configuration files it is absolutely not necessary for you to
know how to program in Tcl/Tk, since you just have to modify values or
extend the examples I and others have provided. And to those who want
to exploit all of the power available by using Tcl/Tk as TkDesk's
configuration language, please have a look at the answer to FAQ
``Where can I find out more about Tcl/Tk?''.
The configuration files can be accessed from the TkDesk menu via the
Configuration submenu, or from the "Configuration" submenu of the
popup menu of the application bar's first button. The built-in editor
will then appear with the selected configuration file(s) already
loaded. Each configuration file contains pretty detailed comments on
what the individual settings are for, and how they can be modified.
Well, at least they contain examples, which can guide your
modification attempts. Once you have modified the configuration file,
you can save it and reload it into TkDesk by making use of the entries
of the editor's "Configuration" menu described in section ``The Built-
in Editor''. Use F5 to save the file and reload it into TkDesk, and F6
to do the same but additionally close the configuration file.
As already mentioned, each configuration file contains directions on
how to modify its definitions. The general advice is: Simply look at
the example definitions, because these make things a great deal
clearer than any explanation can.
Tip: In case your looking for the definition of a specific part of
TkDesk, e.g. for the popup menu of pdf files, use the "Find..." entry
in the "Configuration" menu. Just enter pdf in the "String:" field,
hit enter, and double-click the found file.
9.1. Configuration Files
All of these are "sourced" (i.e. processed) by TkDesk during start-up.
This happens in the following order:
1. System
2. ButtonBar
3. Preferences
4. FileTags
5. Commands
6. Directories
7. Popups
8. AppBar
9. Sounds
10.
Local (if existent)
9.1.1. AppBar
This configuration file lets you define all aspects of the application
bar (apart from its layout, use the entries of the submenu
"Application Bar" of the comet-button's popup menu for this). This is
what you can define here:
o If the application bar should be managed by the window manager just
as an ordinary window. I don't like this, so this is disabled by
default :-).
o The maximum number of buttons in a column (vertical layout) or row
(horizontal layout). Yes, the application bar can contain several
columns or rows!
o The fonts to use for the time and date display.
o Period in seconds after which to update the system load and mailbox
displays, where to check for new mail, plus several additional mail
related options.
o Icons and commands to use for the dial-up networking button.
o Icons and fonts to use for the trash button, and whether to display
its current disk usage in the appbar.
o The actual button definitions, ie. which image to display, and the
entries of the (possibly cascaded) popup menu. See below for the
syntax used.
9.1.2. ButtonBar
This file defines the contents and appearance of the Button Bar, which
is displayed underneath the menu bar of TkDesk's file browser
(tkdesk(button_bar)) or file list windows (tkdesk(small_button_bar).
Both button bars are configured independently from one another.
The third list defined here (tkdesk(dir_button_bar)) is for directory-
specific button bars which will be dynamically displayed and hidden
when the respective directory is entered or left. These will be
displayed in addition to the standard button bar.
9.1.3. Commands
In this file you can define entries which will be added to TkDesk's
"Command" menu, for example to uncompress all selected files, manage
RPM package files, or do whatever you can possibly imagine.
9.1.4. Directories
Here you can define entries and cascaded submenus of directories which
will be added to TkDesk's "Directories" menu. More details are
contained in the "Directories" file itself.
You can also define a list of directories whose parent directories are
not to be displayed in file browser windows, as is usually the case
with your home directory. This can speed up display of directories
underneath an AFS directory, for instance.
Another list lets you define action that are to be performed when a
specific directory is opened. This can be used for example to auto-
mount floppies and CDROM's.
9.1.5. FileTags
Contains definitions for color and font of specific file types (as
distinguished by their extension) as well as standard values for
regular files, executables, and directories, that will be used in
TkDesk's file lists. Also the icons displayed when the "Add Icons"
option is selected are configured here, as well as the icons used for
the desk items, i.e. files and directories which have been dropped on
the root window.
9.1.6. Local
This file does not exist when TkDesk gets installed, but still appears
in the "Configuration" menu. This is because if it exists it will be
sourced during start-up of TkDesk, so this is the ideal place to put
local extensions of TkDesk.
9.1.7. Popups
The popup menus that appear when the right mouse button is clicked
over a file or directory are defined here. There are individual
definitions for the popup menus of directories, executables, and of
other files. To find the correct popup menu for a file TkDesk checks
the mask of each entry of a popup list one after the other from the
beginning of the list to its end, so the masks should become more
general towards the end of the list.
An additional popup list (tkdesk(fileops,popup)) may be defined here
for use in the "Copy, Move, etc." dialog.
9.1.8. Sounds
Here the command to be used for playing sounds can be defined, as well
as the sound files which are to be played at certain events. TkDesk
comes with a few AU sound files which are located in the sounds
subdirectory of TkDesk's library directory. You can find out where
this is by looking at the fifth line of the tkdesk script.
9.1.9. System
All the more "basic" features of TkDesk can be configured here. These
are:
o Colours and fonts to be used by TkDesk,
o Default size of file listboxes,
o Definitions of shell commands which are used by TkDesk to copy,
move, delete, etc. files. These should be fine as they are in most
cases, but you may want to tweak them for your system, so take a
look at these definitions.
o The default command for printing,
o Which editor to use, plus settings for the built-in editor,
o Periods for automatic refreshing of the file lists and saving of
TkDesk's configuration,
o Maximum number of entries in history menus,
o If TkDesk should ask for confirmation when the user wants to quit
TkDesk,
o If TkDesk should allow the menus to be "tearoff-able",
o The paths in which TkDesk will look for images and sounds used in
the configuration files,
o Icons to use for file list and browser windows, and for the help
window,
o Whether to use "focus follows mouse" default or not,
o Settings for the desk items, e.g. whether to let them be managed by
the window manager,
o Commands to execute after start-up and before shutdown (of TkDesk).
9.2. The TkDesk API
Many of the values to be specified for TkDesk's configuration files
are Tcl scripts. Also, you can define your own Tcl proc's to use in
these scripts. To allow better control of TkDesk, TkDesk externalizes
a couple of proc's which could be called the "TkDesk API" (although
currently they aren't much more then a random set of more or less
useful proc's, but anyway).
The proc's I currently think are part of the API are the following:
dsk_msg_alert msg
Display msg in an alert dialog box.
dsk_msg_error msg
Display msg in an error dialog box.
dsk_msg_info msg
Display msg in an info dialog box.
dsk_confirm msg script
Display msg in a dialog box with "OK" and "Cancel" buttons.
Evaluate script if user pressed "OK".
dsk_debug msg
If TkDesk runs in development mode (e.g. by setting the -devel
command line option) print msg to stderr.
dsk_ask_dir
Ask for a directory to open.
dsk_ask_exec
Ask for a command to execute or file to open.
dsk_exec command
Execute command in the background. When the command completes
its exit code will be displayed in the status bar of all file
browser windows.
dsk_exec_as_root command
Asks for the root password, and executes command in the
backgroud under root permission if it was okay.
dsk_view command
Execute command in the background and displays its output
(stdout and stderr) in a built-in editor window.
dsk_view_as_root command
Same as dsk_view but asks for the root password first.
dsk_path_exec path command
Executes command in path and in the background.
dsk_path_view
Executes command in path and in the background, and displays its
output in an editor window.
dsk_edit ?+linenum? ?file? ...
Without arguments asks for a file to open, or opens all files in
the same editor window, positioning the cursor at line linenum
if given. If file is "New File" a black editor window will be
opened.
dsk_busy
Displays mouse as "busy" and locks all TkDesk window from
receiving mouse events.
dsk_lazy
Displays mouse as "lazy", and makes all TkDesk windows
responsive again.
dsk_active what
Returns information about the currently active file browser or
list window: If what is "dir" it returns its directory; if it is
"sel" it returns all selected items as a Tcl list; if it is
"win" it returns the Tk name of the active window.
dsk_select X ?names?
If names is not given, copies the full path names of the files
selected in the currently active file browser or list window to
the X selection. Otherwise just their names are copied.
dsk_read_string msg ?script? ?dontpaste?
Displays $msg in a dialog box where the user can enter an
arbitrary string. If script is not given, the string will be
returned; if it is given the variable dsk_read_string will be
set to the user's input and script will be evaluated. If
"dontpaste" is passed as a third argument to this command the
current X selection will not be pasted into the entry field.
dsk_filesel message path
Opens TkDesk file selection dialog using message as the label,
and presetting the entry field with path. Path is also used as
the filter for the full file selection box.
dsk_refresh ?file ...?
For each file all windows displaying the corresponding directory
is refreshed. File may also be a directory.
dsk_sound sound
Plays sound if a sound command has been defined and sound is
switched on. Sound is the second index in the tkdesk(sound,xxx)
array as defined in the "Sounds" config file ("xxx" in this
case).
dsk_copy ?source ...? ?dest?
Opens the "Copy, Move, etc." dialog box, filling in "Source" and
"Destination" fields if provided.
dsk_dialup phonenumber
Without arguments asks for a phone number, and passes this to
the command specified in tkdesk(appbar,dialup,cmd_up), else it
does the same without asking.
dsk_find_files ?options?
Opens the "Find Files" dialog, presetting its fields from the
options. The following options are available: -path path, -mask
mask, -string string, -regexp regexp, -extreg extreg, -type
"all|file|dir|sym|socket|pipe", -owner owner, -group group,
-modified mod, -accessed acc, -size size, -case, -samefs,
-followsym. If the option -doit is given the search will start
as soon as the dialog is displayed, without having to press
"Search".
dsk_mail file ?string?
Asks for an email address where to send file. If file is the
empty string, string will be sent instead.
dsk_netscape what ?url? ?args?
This proc is used to communicate with a running netscape. If
Netscape is not running yet it will be started first. What may
be "file", "url", or "rcmd" (Communicator only); url may be a
regular URL, a file name, or, if what is "rcmd", it may be
"mail", "news" or "edit". Args may be "window", or "raise", or
both.
dsk_periodic command seconds
Opens the "Periodic Execution" window and executes "command"
every "seconds" seconds.
dsk_open viewer file
Opens file by performing its default action. Viewer should be
given as ""; I just didn't manage to get rid of this obsolete
argument yet.
dsk_open_browser dir
Opens dir in a new file browser window.
dsk_open_dir dir
Opens dir in a new file list window (unless the option "Always
in Browser" is set).
dsk_openall ?files?
Opens all files if given, or all currently selected files by
performing their respective default action.
9.3. Shortcuts
When specifying Tcl scripts in the popup and appbar configuration
lists (tkdesk(popup,...) and tkdesk(appbar)), and in some other places
as well (precide, hus?), you can use a number of shortcuts that will
be expanded just before evaluation:
%s Will be replaced with the full pathname of the first selected
file.
%f Will be replaced with its filename only.
%b Will be replaced with its filename without extension
("basename").
%d Will be replaced with its directory only.
%A Will be replaced with a Tcl list of the full pathnames of all
currently selected files, or of the files dropped on an appbar
button.
%a Same as %a, but replaces with a list of filenames only.
%B Same as %A but doesn't complain if no files are selected.
Instead it will be replaced with the empty string.
%D Will be replaced with the directory of the currently active file
list or browser window.
%x Will be replaced with the contents of the X selection.
%X Same as %x but doesn't complain if the selection is empty.
%S For the "Copy, Move, etc." popup menu; will be replaced of
what's been entered into the "Source" text entry field.
%D For the same popup menu; will be replaced of what's been entered
into the "Destination" text entry field.
9.4. Utilities
To make life while configuring TkDesk a little easier as long as
there's no GUI configuration available yet, TkDesk provides four
little "helper" tools that help with selecting colors, fonts, icons,
and sounds, by using graphical mouse-based dialog boxes. These are
accessed through the "Configuration" menu, and are basically all
handled in the same way.
Each of these dialogs contains three buttons:
Insert
Works only correctly if the dialog was invoked from the editor's
"Configuration" menu. Inserts the current value at the cursor
position in that editor window.
Select
Copies the selected value to the X selection, so it can be
pasted at arbitrary places using the middle mouse button.
Close
Closes the dialog.
10. Frequently Asked Questions
10.1. How can I change the position of the application bar?
Since version 1.1 the appbar contains a "handle" at the upper or left
edge that can be used to drag the appbar around the screen by just
pressing the left mouse button over it.
You can also drag the application bar around simply by holding down
the Alt- or Meta-key and simultaneously pressing the left mouse button
over the application bar. You can also invoke the "Move..." entry from
the comet button's popup menu to do the same without having to press
Alt/Meta.
Since version 1.0b1 the configuration file "AppBar" sets also a
variable named tkdesk(appbar,wm_managed) which can be used to have the
apllication bar managed by the window manager, although this is
usually not necessary.
10.2. Can I have transparent icons?
No, but have a look at the answer to the next question. As far as I
know to have transparent icons in X you need to make use of X11's
SHAPE extension. Now as raw X programming is something only for the
very brave, I didn't look into this any deeper yet. Any takers?
10.3. How can I change the background colour of the icons and desk
items?
The background colour of icons used when the window manager iconifies
a window can be set in the configuration file "System". The variable
you are looking for is tkdesk(color,icon_background). By setting this
variable to the same colour as your root window you can achieve the
effect of transparent icons. You can define the colour either as a
normal name (such as "grey", "blue") or in the form #rrggbb.
10.4. How can I have a different set of desk items on each virtual
screen?
10.4.1. FVWM and similar or derived window managers
First, you have to set the variable tkdesk(desk_items,wm_managed) in
the System config file to 1. Then you have to configure fvwm to not
decorate windows of class dsk_DeskItem. For instance:
Style "dsk_DeskItem" NoTitle, NoHandles, WindowListSkip, BorderWidth 0
10.4.2. CDE window manager
As for FVWM, you first have to set the variable
tkdesk(desk_items,wm_managed) in the System config file to 1. To tell
the CDE window manager (dtwm) to not decorate desk items you have to
add the following line to either the file Dtwm or .Xdefaults in your
home directory, and then restart dtwm:
Dtwm*dsk_DeskItem*clientDecoration: none
10.5. How do I configure FVWM mini-icons for TkDesk?
For fvwm95's Style command (like fvwm2 from which it comes) you can
use a variety of things to identify a tkdesk window - you don't have
to use the name only; you can also use the window's class name or
resource string. To find out what the window class and resource
string are for a certain type of tkdesk window, use the FvwmIdent
module (if you use Debian, this will be under the Window
Managers->Modules menu; if you're using the default fvwm95rc that
comes with the fvwm95 distribution, this will be under the
Programs->Modules menu; I don't know about others).
Anyway, FvwmIdent tells me that the window opened by tkDesk's "Open
Browser..." menu has a class name of dsk_FileViewer, so I open the
FvwmConsole (or FvwmTalk) module, and enter the commands:
Style dsk_FileViewer TitleIcon mini-filemgr.xpm
Recapture
Then the browser window appears with the appropriate icon. To get the
window opened by the "Open Directory..." menu, use: Style dsk_FileList
TitleIcon mini-filemgr.xpm
(The "recapture" command is only necessary to apply the command to
windows already open; it isn't necessary in your config. file)
(Contributed by Daniel Martin, dtm12@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu)
10.6. Configuring the appbar or popup menus to execute (export
foo=bar; program;) doesn't work.
Yes, this is a bit tricky. What you need to do is the following:
dsk_exec sh -c {export foo=bar; program}
10.7. Composing characters doesn't work in TkDesk's editor.
Currently you have to edit the file cb_tools/bindings.tcl in TkDesk's
library directory to make this work. Locate the two lines containing
the word "XKB"; all you need to do is to comment out the following
lines by prepending a '#'.
10.8. TkDesk's layout seems to be screwed. I can't get the appbar
displayed anymore.
TkDesk saves all layout information in the file /.tkdesk/_layout, so
this is the place to look for bad lines. If in doubt you can safely
delete this file and all should be back to normal.
In case of the appbar not showing up you can try the following (sent
by Jochem Huhmann, joh@unidui.uni-duisburg.de):
1. Quit tkdesk
2. Open the file ".tkdesk/_layout" within your home directory with
your favorite editor
3. Delete the line looking like "Toplevel dsk_appbar 1 66x740+956+0"
4. Write the file back to disk
5. Restart tkdesk. It will place the AppBar according to its defaults
now.
6. Place the AppBar as you like (it doesn't like horizontal layout too
much)
7. Do a "TkDesk/Save All Now"
10.9. On my RedHat 5.x system the appbar clock shows the wrong time.
This is from Bryan Venable, spif@vousi.com:
This may have to do with the location of the zoneinfo directory. For
libc5 I believe it's /usr/lib/zoneinfo, whereas for glibc it'd be
/usr/share/zoneinfo. Try making a symbolic link from whichever you
have to whichever you don't. There is a fix to Red Hat 5.0 which has
to do with this, but in that situation the problem is with libc5
programs running on a system "optimized" for glibc.
And Raul Quiroga, quiroga@cartan.math.cinvestav.mx, also has got some
advice for this:
Concerning the problem described below I received several suggestions.
Some allowed to get the date in the tkdesk right but an incorrect one
with the date command. Finally what I did is set the time with
timeconfig to Universal with "Hardware clock set to GMT" checked;
after a reboot both the appbar and date reported the correct time.
Thanks all for your help.
10.10. TkDesk complains about "invalid command name wm" and won't
start up
There seem to be two solutions to this problem: One is if you're
running on a RedHad Linux 5.x system, the libc5 that's packaged and
installed in /lib may be too old a version. If ls /lib/libc.so.5.* on
your system gives something like /lib/libc.so.5.3.xx you should
upgrade to at least 5.4.20. I think you can get a newer version of
libc from sunsite.unc.edu in /pub/Linux/GCC.
The other solution that should always work is to do the following
(thanks to Ike Hishikawa, ike@hishikawa.f.uunet.de, for this one):
Assuming that the tarball was unpacked under /usr/local,
open /usr/local/bin/tkdesk with your favorite editor.
At the very top of the file it should say:
#!/bin/sh
#-*- tcl -*- \
PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH ;#\
exec tkdesksh "$0" "$@"
After the 3rd line, insert two lines pointing to the location of
tcl/tk libs, so that you get:
#!/bin/sh
#-*- tcl -*- \
PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH ;#\
export TCL_LIBRARY=/usr/local/lib/TkDesk/tcl_lib ;#\
export TK_LIBRARY=/usr/local/lib/TkDesk/tk_lib ;#\
exec tkdesksh "$0" "$@"
This did the trick for me :)
Hope this helps,
10.11. I cannot launch other Tcl/Tk applications from within TkDesk
Probably your version of TkDesk sets the environment variables
TK_LIBRARY and TCL_LIBRARY, which confuses other Tcl/Tk apps. Unset
these variables in the config files before the invocation of the
problematic commands, eg. replace xterm with
sh -c {unset TK_LIBRARY TCL_LIBRARY; xterm}
(contributed by Christoph Dalitz, dalitz@infotech.de)
10.12. I'd like TkDesk to do this and that. How can I achieve this?
The first place to start are the various configuration files of
TkDesk. These can be accessed either by the "TkDesk/Configuration"
menu of the file browser windows, or by the "Configuration" submenu of
the popup menu of the very first button of the application bar of
TkDesk.
Since TkDesk uses Tcl as the language for its configuration, and these
configuration files are simply "source"ed, you could add any sort of
Tcl proc for instance to the configuration file "System". This proc
would then be available in every other configuration file as well.
With the set of commands provided by TkDesk, which are listed e.g. in
the configuration file "Popups", TkDesk provides a very powerful
platform for the user who knows Tcl.
10.13. Is there a TkDesk mailing list?
Yes! Thanks to Chris Sterritt and Alan V. Shackelford, there is a
mailing list dedicated to TkDesk at shaknet.clark.net. Just send a
mail to majordomo@shaknet.clark.net with an empty subject line and
"subscribe tkdesk" as the message body. Please join, it's worth it!
The list's address is tkdesk@shaknet.clark.net, by the way.
There is also a searchable archive of the TkDesk mailing list on the
web at http://www.findmail.com/list/tkdesk. This is probably the best
place to start looking when you run into problems with TkDesk.
10.14. Where can I find out more about Tcl/Tk?
The official Tcl/Tk homepage is at
. The Tcl/Tk FAQs and lots of user-
contributed software can be obtained from
. There is also a newsgroup dedicated
to Tcl/Tk: comp.lang.tcl.
11. Tips and Tricks
This section currently contains just one tip on how to combine TkDesk
and XEmacs. If you have any procs or other stuff in your configuration
file which you consider could be useful for others as well, or just
think it's generally cool, please send me an email, so that I can add
it to this section! Thanks!
11.1. TkDesk and XEmacs
If you are using XEmacs 19.12 or later you can couple TkDesk and
XEmacs quite closely together by adding the following proc into any of
your configuration files (I have it in "Popups"):
______________________________________________________________________
proc xemacs_load {what {where same}} {
switch $where {
"same" {
exec gnudoit -q (find-file \"$what\")
}
"other" {
exec gnudoit -q (find-file-other-window \"$what\")
}
"frame" {
exec gnudoit -q (find-file-other-frame \"$what\")
}
"scratch" {
exec gnudoit -q (switch-to-buffer-other-frame \"*scratch*\")
}
}
}
______________________________________________________________________
And now my generic popup menu for files matching * reads:
______________________________________________________________________
{{*} {
{{Edit} {dsk_edit %s}}
{{XEmacs} {xemacs_load %s}}
{{Other Window} {xemacs_load %s other}}
{{Other Frame} {xemacs_load %s frame}}
-
{{Print} {dsk_print %s}}
}}
______________________________________________________________________
This way you can load files from TkDesk into a running XEmacs! This
assumes that you have the command gnudoit somewhere in your path, and
have started the XEmacs server. This can be done by adding the
following line to your ~/.emacs:
(gnuserv-start)