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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN">
<html> <head>
<title>TkGoodstuff</title>
</head>
<body BGCOLOR="#ffefd5" TEXT="#181871">
<H4><IMG ALIGN=MIDDLE SRC="./gx/bat-l.gif">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little less scary!</I>
"<IMG ALIGN=MIDDLE SRC="./gx/bat-r.gif"> </H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center><h1>The TkGoodstuff Package</h1></center>
<center><h4><a href="mailto: layers@vax2.rain.gen.mo.us">by Larry
Ayers</a></h4></center>
<center>Copyright © 1996</center><BR>
<center><H5>Published in Issue 11 of the Linux Gazette</H5></center>
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><h3>Introduction</h3></center>
<p>For the past couple of years Mark Crimmins at the University of Michigan has
been developing and refining an extremely configurable desktop button-bar;
since it's written in Tcl-Tk and superficially resembles the Fvwm Goodstuff
module, it is known as TkGoodstuff. The utility has passed through several
beta versions in the last year. Recently Mark made available a release version
4.1, so I thought this would be an auspicious time to review it.
<center><h3>Features</h3></center>
<p>TkGoodstuff is really a package of "clients", which are modular utilities,
organized and displayed by the master program. Some of the client utilities
were written by Mark Crimmins, while others were contributed by
users. They include:<br>
<ul>
<li>Window-list: displays running programs a la Win95
<li>Pager: Compact pager, like fvwm's
<li>Biff: Mail notifier
<li>Net: Net status indicator, can also launch scripts
<li>Dialer: Configurable ppp/slip script-generator and launcher
<li>Jots: Notepad utility
<li>Watchdog: Monitors any logfile for changes
<li>Clock: Any sort you like
<li>Load: Like a miniature xload
<li>Many others! Consult the <a href="http://www-personal.umich.edu/~markcrim/tkgoodstuff">web-site</a> for descriptions
</ul>
<img align="left" hspace=10 src="./gx/ayers/tkg.gif" alt="TkGoodstuff screenshot">
<p>TkGoodstuff includes a tabbed-notebook style configuration utility, which
allows a multitude of settings to be made for all of the clients. Colors,
icons, fonts, and nesting of clients can all be determined here. Configuring
a utility like this one can be extremely time-consuming. I like to rough out
the configuration in one pass, live with it for a while, then make incremental
changes from time to time as they occur to me. After making any change in the
configuration notebook a window pops up giving you the opportunity to restart
Tkgoodstuff (hereafter referred to as Tkg).
<p>Tkg is designed to cooperate with and interact with Fvwm; it can be loaded
as an Fvwm module either at start-up or from the mouse-menu. If run as a
module the button-bar will "stay on top" and inhabit all pager windows. There
is also an option which allows Tkg to span any of the four screen edges.<br>
<p>On my system PPP dial-up sessions are initiated by means of a short shell
script called <i>ppdi</i>. I recently discovered that the Tkg <b>Net</b>
client can launch this script when its panel is mouse-clicked, and terminate
the session the same way by launching the <i>ppp-off</i> script. This is just
marginally easier than finding an rxvt window and typing the commands in, but
much easier to explain to my wife and kids! The <b>Net</b> button also shows
total time online when a connection is open.
<p>Modules which are used less often can be invoked from a submenu viewed by
clicking the <i>Utilities</i> button.
<p>My favorite configuration uses a small subset of the available modules,
with the window-list and pager combination occupying the lower half of the
bar.
<p>Tkg comes with ample documentation in the form of linked HTML files. A
tutorial is even included which provides help for creating your own modules.
<hr>
<center><h3>Availability and Installation</h3>
</center>
<p>TkGoodstuff is available from the major Linux archive FTP sites, but its <a
href="ftp://merv.philosophy.lsa.umich.edu/pub">home site</a> will have the
most recent version. The compilation and installation process is
well-documented within the package; the current version (4.1) does require
Tcl-7.5 and Tk-4.1.<br>
<hr>
<address><a href="http://vax2.rain.gen.mo.us/~layers/">Larry
Ayers<layers@vax2.rain.gen.mo.us></a></address> <!-- hhmts start -->
Last modified: Tue Oct 22 09:25:55 CDT 1996
<!-- hhmts end -->
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