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tkgoodstuff: Introduction

Screenshots:

• Home system button bar.
• Minimal, unobtrusive button bar.
• Big button panel.
• Win95-like button bar.

TkGoodStuff for X windows is a utility panel---in the usual and simplest case, a button bar. It is designed to be easily configured and modified using a GUI preferences manager tool. The envisioned use is as an always-on-top destop utility to serve the user's common needs for indicators and buttons. Some "clients" are included: analog/digital alarm clock, biff, WWW browser launcher, PPP (or SLIP) dialup net dialer and status indicator, note taker/manager, calendar program alarm demon, POP/IMAP mail fetching scheduler, system load display, application/utility menus, fvwm support. See below for some details about the clients.

Tkgoodstuff, when used with the fvwm window manager, can be set up to behave in many ways like the Win95 taskbar (spanning any edge of the screen, containing buttons for every running application, with the ability to "hide" along the side of the screen and to be "dragged" to another side, with a GUI-configurable menu, etc.).

Table of Contents (this document)

• Advantages of TkGoodStuff over separate clock/biff/etc.
• Included Clients
• Customizing Features
• Documentation

Advantages of TkGoodStuff
over Separate Clock, Biff, etc.

• Just one process. Even though we use the farily hungry wish interpreter (of the tcl/tk language), you probably will save on memory and cpu usage even if you use only a couple of the basic clients.
• Just one window, which can be moved about, killed, iconified, etc., all at once.
• All configuration information in a single place, set using a powerful GUI tool.
• Background processes (like mail-checking, calendar-alarm checking, serial TCP line status checking) are queued together, so that there is less overlap.
• Clients can easily share information and configuration options (e.g., there is a global "no beeps" option; PopImap fetches mail when the Net status indicator shows that the net is up, and tells Biff to be extra vigilant for a while).
• Easy to configure and enhance with the preferences manager and (for the more intrepid) by tcl/tk script hacking.

Included Clients

The "clients" (tcl/tk scripts that produce buttons or displays in the panel) that are included in this distribution are:

• Clock: a compact analog and/or digital time and/or date alarm clock. Mouse button 1 activates the Tkgoodstuff popup menu, with various switches and actions provided by the individual clients (including a handy alarm-setting dialog).
• Biff: a feature-rich mail checker that (configurably): beeps and "lights up" the Biff button's icon and/or label when new mail arrives in your spool file (or other file(s) you specify). Can pop up a summary of new messages on arrival (also does that on a click of mouse button 3); a click on a message in the summary list displays the message. Also can display the number of new messages. Mouse button 2 tells us to treat the current mail in the watched file as old (so you won't be notified until more mail arrives). Supports multiple (standard, MH, and remote IMAP) folders. Has four alert levels (which determine the icon that is displayed).
• Net: indicates the status of a PPP or SLIP connection and allows you to bring the connection up or down with a click. Also (if wanted) will display net uptime, and can periodically "ping" yourself so that the remote host won't close the connection because of inactivity. Included also is a GUI Dialer program, which you can call from Net to dial your modem (with nice repeat-dial features), log you in, and start your network (e.g., PPP or Term) software while you watch.
• PopImap: periodically run pop or imap client to get any new mail on remote mail server. Don't get too excited: the fetching is done by a program or script that you provide (e.g., fetchpop, popclient, or imapcopy). No button is produced by this client (though it produces some stuff in the tkgoodstuff popup menu).
• Jots: A handy tool for writing, editing, and searching for notes: diary entries, addresses, ftp sources, ideas, etc. Support for easy shuffling between multiple "folders" of entries.
• WWW: Button 1 launches your web browser (and it stays down and inoperative until you exit the browser). Button 3 instructs your browser (which it starts if necessary) to visit the URL that is the current X selection. Useful for visiting URL's mentioned in news articles, email, etc. Supports choosing among a list of browsers.
• Webster: Retrieves (over the net) the dictionary definition of a word (the current X selection).
• Load: An xload-like system load-average display (auto-scaling graphical, digital, or both). Button 1 launches an xterm running "top".
• Menu: A button labelled "Menu" that produces, well, a menu. The menu is easily configured in the GUI preferences manager.
• Ical: The program ical (as opposed to this client) is a nice tk-based calendar program by Sanjay Ghemawat (http://clef.lcs.mit.edu/~sanjay/ical.html). This client reads your ical calendar information and serves as an alarm daemon, posting alarm notices to your screen when ical would if you had it running (and consuming system resources). A popup submenu allows you to list the day's ical items (including to-do items as well as appointments) and to launch ical itself. Alarm notices come with buttons and check-boxes allowing you to cancel all alarms, or just alarms for a particular item.
• WindowList: For use with Fvwm, produces buttons for open/iconified windows (like the Win95 taskbar).
• Pager, by Eric Kahler: For negotiating desktops with Fvwm.
• WatchDog, by Eric Kahler: This client watches any file similarly to how Biff watches a mail spool file, and displays the file on a click.
• Chooser, by Eric Kahler: This client, at tkgoodstuff start-up, posts a list of tkgoodstuff configuration files to choose from.
• TkMan, by Gary Dezern: Button 1 starts tkman; button 3 tells tkman to look up the man page for the word in the current X selection.

Customizing Features

User-defined buttons

The "standard" user-defined buttons can be configured to show either icons or (multi-line) text labels or both at once (with the icon on any side or in the background), and global options can request no labels or no icons. Among the unlimited possibilities here are use of the current X selection in your command. See the documentation on configuration for more.

"Swallow" Windows

If you really like xosview or xdaliclock or whatever, you can put it in your panel as a Swallow item (tkgoodstuff "swallows" the application window).

Label boxes

A label box contains text, e.g., to label a group of related buttons.

Stacks

You can form vertical or horizontal stacks of elements (e.g., buttons and labels or other stacks), that can be nested indefinitely. If you're not careful, you might get something like the large example above (or worse).

Panels

You can create multiple panels (of buttons, labels, etc.) to place at different parts of the screen or to call up (like a menu) from a "PanelButton".

Documentation

The only documentation for tkgoodstuff is in these html pages, which are included in the distribution's "doc" subdirectory. From the "About tkgoodstuff (help)" window accessed from the popup menu, you can launch a built-in help browser or your web browser (by default, netscape) to read these pages (either your local copy, installed automatically during tkgoodstuff installation, or the latest copy on the net).

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