Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

I have found a solution to using swm without a mouse, based on the helpful 
suggestions of several of your.
edit menu.sh to remove -popup
This lets me toggle with Alt-Tab between any applications including the 
menu.
  I can close the applicatioon with F4 if the top strip is blue (meaning 
it
is the current application).
To actually run an application, rather than loading everything imaginable 
into .xinitrc (with & at the end of each line, which I did not have)  I 
edited the menu to change xterm size from 67x20 to 87x38, as suggested by 
Steven, without adding this as a separate line above the original xterm
(that caused the rest of the menu to disapper, at least in BL300).
The characters are a bit small than normal screen fonts but if I sit
close enough I can read them without glasses, and things are less likely
to go off the end of hte line in pine in receivd mails.

I hit Enter for Xterm once I get into X and I can then type lynx and get
lynx full screen.  Alt-Tab back to the menu, Enter, another rxvt and I
type links.  Do this again and type kermit.  I exited kermit, dialed,
went back into kermit and telnetted here to answer mail.  


Shift-Page Up lets me see what is in the scroll buffer without a mouse.  
Shift-Page Down shifts down.  There are more than 80 columns of text so 
the scrollbar is not interfering with reading 80 column mails.  

However I don't have any cursor when using Pine/Pico.  WHich means it is
not very convenient to use Kermit or telnet from X.  Lynx still has
links in non-bold but I have them numbered.

Any idea what is going on with my cursor?

On this MS DOS 6.22 computer, load DOS with F5, it takes about 10 sec the 
first time to start X, with the top 1/4 of the screen in vertical green 
stripes.  On the Win98 computers, no need to bypass autoexec and 
config.sys and X loads much faster.  Second time I load it on this 
computer it is also faster.  

Excuse me for not commenting directly in the message below but I cannot 
tell where I am without a cursor.  

I still cannot use the calculator but the rest works without a mouse.  The 
console calculator bc does not need a mouse.  I also have paper and 
pencil.


> James Miller wrote:
> >
> > You can edit ~/.xinitrc and add to the end of it the names 
> > (maybe with paths) of all the applications you think you 
> > might use on your computer.  
> 
> Let's have a look at the current ~/.xinitrc
> ------------------------------------------
> swmbg /usr/share/swm/pixmaps/morocco.xpm &
> /usr/share/swm/menu.sh &
> exec swm
> ------------------------------------------
> It runs three applications:  the wallpaper loader, the menu 
> and the wm.  Note that every application line terminates 
> with & (except the last, which starts with exec).
> 
> You can remove any or all of those applications and put
> in your own (eg rxvt).  Just remember to end each line 
> with & (except the last).
> 
> > You also stipulate (not sure how) that all these apps 
> > should open full screen.  
> 
> Use the -geometry parameter.
> 
> > Then, each time you run startx, you get an xsession with all 
> > your apps already open in it, one behind the other
> > Then, to move from one app to another, you just hit alt-tab, 
> > which cycles through all open app windows.
> 
> And you can use ALT-F4 to close certain windows if you do
> not need them.
> 
> Cheers,
> Steven
> 
> 
Steven why could I not have two sizes of xterm in the menu without losing 
everything in the menu after the first one?  Am I not allowed to name them 
both the same way as xterm?  It might be helpful to have a choice of two 
sizes of xterm, at least for people with mouses who can move them around.  
Or maybe two smaller xterms one at page top and one at page bottom.

This is a vast improvement, thanks to Steven and James, except that I 
still dont have any cursor when using e3pi or pico in X.  

On this Cyrix computer or one with AMD cpu.    

This is one of those days where everything finally went right (at least if 
you like late snowstorms).  
Sindi, with much gratitude for all the free lessons