9menu

9menu

[Scott Schwartz]

As long as we are being 9fans, how about this:

--- 1.1	1994/11/29 03:02:07
+++ 9menu.c	1994/11/29 03:02:53
@@ -228,7 +228,7 @@
 		return;
 
 	close(ConnectionNumber(dpy));
-	execl("/bin/sh", "sh", "-c", com, NULL);
+	execl("/bin/rc", "rc", "-c", com, NULL);
 	_exit(1);
 }
 

Re: 9menu

[Arnold Robbins]

>| == Rob
>  == Scott

> | i disagree: the SHELL variable is conventionally just what you want:
> | an indication of what interactive shell the user desires. the argument
> | about make is spurious because make's functioning requires a
> | standard shell; 9menu is for interactive applications, a different
> | subject entirely.
> 
> That's the crucial point: is 9menu itself an interactive application,
> or is it a tool that that should support a standard syntax?  My
> impression is that the latter is the more useful view, because it
> permits users to exchange 9menu command lines without depending upon
> which interactive shell each of them uses.

I have to admit that this is mostly how I envision 9menu, as a tool, not an
interactive application. (It's interactive through the mouse, but that's
orthogonal to the issue here.)  My own expectation is that 9menu commands
would run shell scripts that execute the larger tasks, and those scripts
can be in any shell you like, via !#.  This has the major advantage that
you can edit the shell script without having to restart 9menu each time.

I haven't completely decided yet how to deal with this. I'm semi-leaning
towards a command line option -shell, instead of $SHELL.

Arnold

Re: 9menu

[Scott Schwartz]

| i disagree: the SHELL variable is conventionally just what you want:
| an indication of what interactive shell the user desires. the argument
| about make is spurious because make's functioning requires a
| standard shell; 9menu is for interactive applications, a different
| subject entirely.

That's the crucial point: is 9menu itself an interactive application,
or is it a tool that that should support a standard syntax?  My
impression is that the latter is the more useful view, because it
permits users to exchange 9menu command lines without depending upon
which interactive shell each of them uses.

Re: 9menu

[rob]

i disagree: the SHELL variable is conventionally just what you want:
an indication of what interactive shell the user desires. the argument
about make is spurious because make's functioning requires a
standard shell; 9menu is for interactive applications, a different
subject entirely.

Re: 9menu

[Arnold Robbins]

> | That's not unreasonable, what I should probably do is fix 9menu to
> | just use ${SHELL:-/bin/sh}. 
> 
> I don't know... Isn't it better to have a definate syntax that 9menu
> will use, rather than have it depend on some environment variable?
> (Think about makefiles that need SHELL=/bin/sh at the top to get around
> some versions of make doing this.)  If anything, a command line option
> is better than importing SHELL, I think.

I agree, a command line option is better. Again, patches welcome, if not
I'll try to tackle it over the next week or so.

Arnold

Re: 9menu

[Scott Schwartz]

| That's not unreasonable, what I should probably do is fix 9menu to
| just use ${SHELL:-/bin/sh}. 

I don't know... Isn't it better to have a definate syntax that 9menu
will use, rather than have it depend on some environment variable?
(Think about makefiles that need SHELL=/bin/sh at the top to get around
some versions of make doing this.)  If anything, a command line option
is better than importing SHELL, I think.

9menu

[Arnold Robbins]

A comment about starting 9term from 9menu; that'll work, for now. 9wm's
"New" menu item will start 9term by default, and then xterm if it's not
there, with a command line option to change what terminal program should
be run (e.g., you might like xvt (== xterm on a diet)). The point being,
9wm will do that in the long run.

I don't intend to fix it to change window labels or icon labels or anything
like that for feedback while a program is spawning. Write a shell program
to do it and have 9menu call that shell program... 9menu has enough bells
and whistles as it is. :-)

I'm told that 9wm should be out REALLY RSN...

Arnold

Re: 9menu

[Arnold Robbins]

I sent the announcement to sam-fans since that seems to be where most
of the discussion of 9term takes place. I figured 9fans was more for
discussion of the real thing, not faking it under Unix.

As to this:

> To: Sam Fans <sam-fans@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu>
> Subject: 9menu
> Date: 	Mon, 28 Nov 1994 22:08:29 -0500
> From: Scott Schwartz <schwartz@galapagos.cse.psu.edu>
> 
> As long as we are being 9fans, how about this:
> 
> --- 1.1	1994/11/29 03:02:07
> +++ 9menu.c	1994/11/29 03:02:53
> @@ -228,7 +228,7 @@
>  		return;
>  
>  	close(ConnectionNumber(dpy));
> -	execl("/bin/sh", "sh", "-c", com, NULL);
> +	execl("/bin/rc", "rc", "-c", com, NULL);
>  	_exit(1);
>  }

That's not unreasonable, what I should probably do is fix 9menu to
just use ${SHELL:-/bin/sh}. If I find some spare time I'll probably
do that.  If someone wishes to beat me to it and mail me a patch,
that's fine too.

Arnold