[Back to TkGoodStuff] Running TkGoodStuff

Running TkGoodStuff

Table of Contents (this document)

Invocation

You invoke tkgoodstuff by issuing a command of the following form:
tkgoodstuff [-geometry -3+0] [-f configfilename ]
Here, the brackets indicate optional arguments, which are discussed below.

Geometry

tkgoodstuff looks in two places for geometry (screen location) instructions, and, failing that, picks a default in the upper right corner of the screen. A geometry specification is a string that identifies a point on the screen by its x and y distances in pixels from the top (or bottom) and left (or right) edges of your screen:
Specification Puts the tkgoodstuff Panel . . .
+1-123 1 pixel from the left and 123 pixels from the bottom of the screen
-1+123 1 pixel from the right and 123 pixels from the bottom of the screen

tkgoodstuff chooses the first geometry specification it finds in the following ways:

  1. In the command line, as follows:
           tkgoodstuff -geometry +34-88
           
  2. In the active configuration file, by a line such as:
           set TKG_geometry +34-88
           

Determination of Configuration File

tkgoodstuff needs a configuration file to run. It uses the first file it finds in the following ways:
  1. Named on the command line, as follows (where "configfilename" is the name of your file):
           tkgoodstuff -f configfilename
           
  2. Named in the environment variable TKGOODSTUFFRC (if it is set).
  3. In your home directory (as set in the environment variable HOME) under the name .tkgoodstuffrc.
  4. In the tkgoodstuff directory (by default, /usr/local/lib/tkgoodstuff), under the name system-tkgoodstuffrc.
Using the "-f configfilename" form allows you to have many different panels defined for different purposes.

Button Actions

Buttons behave slightly differently from what you may be used to, in that their function is executed as soon as you click on the button (rather than when you release the button). The reason for this is not some religious preference: the handling of event bindings in tk, as far as I can see, makes it difficult to implement our "icon+text" buttons in any other way (save in a C extension to tk and an accompanying new wish interpreter, which I wanted to avoid for a "lite" utility like this).

Using the Popup Menu

To invoke the popup menu, move the pointer over the tkgoodstuff clock and hold down the first mouse button. When you release the button with the mouse pointer over a menu (or sub-menu) item, the corresponding action will be performed.

Among the items on the popup menu are:

Exiting

One of the entries on the popup menu is "Exit tkgoodstuff". Use it, or use your window manager function to destroy the tkgoodstuff window, or kill the process, or turn your machine off.

Sep 14, 1995. Mark Crimmins markcrim@umich.edu

[Back to TkGoodStuff]