June 2005
A Simple tck/tk Menu
One problem faced by many X windows users is when switching window managers and/or environments, access to applications may vary. Many full environments have the ability to automatically configure where applications reside. Not all do, however. One simple solution to that problem is to use the wish interpreter to whip up a quick tcl/tk menu that should run under any window manager and/or environment.
Note the text is not a tcl/tk tutorial nor
is it a full blown wish tutorial.
Prerequisites
In order for it to work, obviously tcl/tk and wish need to be installed on the system. They can be downloaded at the tcl/tk web site.
Additionally, to make sure under any window manager that the menu can be started it is a good idea to use a $HOME/.xinitrc file that starts an xterm before the window manager. Following is a simple example:
xterm & wmaker
Once the menu is completed, it can be added to the .xinitrc file as well.
A Bare Bones
A copy of all the code used in the text can be found at the end of it.
The first draft contains the title of the menu which will appear in the
window title, one command and an exit call.
#!/usr/bin/env wish
wm title . "My Menu"
button .xterm -text "xterm" -bd 1 -foreground #444444 -command \
{ exec /usr/X11R6/bin/xterm -ls & } -width 8
button .exit -text "exit" -bd 1 -foreground #444444 -command \
{exit} -width 8
pack .xterm .exit
Now a line by line:
#!/usr/bin/env wish
Sets up the call to the wish interpreter.
wm title . "My Menu"
Is the line that sets the title of the window.
button .xterm -text "xterm" -bd 1 -foreground #444444 -command \
{ exec /usr/X11R6/bin/xterm -ls & } -width 8
The first button, the .xterm is what the button is called
with regard to the script - not the label on the button itself. For
simplicity - they are the same. Next is -text "xterm" which
is what shows up on the button itself. The -bd is the border
depth and -foreground is the color of the text. Next comes
the -command where in brackets, the literal command can be
put as well as an & to make sure it detaches.
Next is another command, exit, which follows a similar format.
The -width in pixels.
Last and not least, the pack directive places the buttons
in order. Since the script does not define the precise placement of the
buttons, they simply follow one after the other like so:
Dealing with fonts
The default font for the menu may vary, so in order to use a particular one, the font can be specified within the script itself. Following is an example with helvetica:
font create helvfont -family Helvetica -size 10 -weight normal \ -slant roman wm title . "My Menu"
Everything in that syntax is pretty self explanatory except the
font create, that is used to give the font a title which
is used internally by the script. To use the font for an item, just add
the -font <name> flag to each item. Following is
the new script with the font defined for each element:
#!/usr/bin/env wish
font create helvfont -family Helvetica -size 10 -weight normal -slant roman
wm title . "My Menu"
button .xterm -text "xterm" -bd 1 -foreground #444444 -command \
{ exec /usr/X11R6/bin/xterm -ls & } -width 8 -font helvfont
button .xlock -text "xlock" -bd 1 -foreground #444444 -command \
{ exec xlock -mode blank & } -width 8 -font helvfont
button .exit -text "exit" -bd 1 -foreground #444444 -command \
{exit} -width 8 -font helvfont
pack .xterm .xlock .exit
The new menu with a defined font looks like so:
Adding Items
Now that the basic look and feel is finished, it is simple enough to add a few key items that are commonly used from desktop to desktop, following is the code for the finished version:
#!/usr/bin/env wish
font create helvfont -family Helvetica -size 10 -weight normal -slant roman
wm title . "My Menu"
button .xterm -text "xterm" -bd 1 -foreground #444444 -command \
{ exec /usr/X11R6/bin/xterm -ls & } -width 8 -font helvfont
button .xlock -text "xlock" -bd 1 -foreground #444444 -command \
{ exec xlock -mode blank & } -width 8 -font helvfont
button .firefox -text "firefox" -bd 1 -foreground #444444 -command \
{ exec /home/mui/firefox/firefox & } -width 8 -font helvfont
button .soffice -text "soffice" -bd 1 -foreground #444444 -command \
{ exec /home/mui/soffice/program/soffice & } -width 8 -font helvfont
button .exit -text "exit" -bd 1 -foreground #444444 -command \
{exit} -width 8 -font helvfont
pack .xterm .firefox .soffice .xlock .exit
and a pic of what it looks like:
Source Code
A copy of all the source code examples is available:
Summary
The tcl/tk language and kit are very useful. Applying the wish
interpreter to get quick - and good - results can help in creating simple
portable X windows guis or just plain old application launchers.
systhread's
