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BRICONS(l) MISC. REFERENCE MANUAL PAGES BRICONS(l)
NAME
bricons - quick start up utility for applications using
text, icons and pop-up menus on an X display
SYNOPSIS
bricons [options]
[-file] [-col] [-help] [-sensitive]
[-bmdir] [-default]
DESCRIPTION
Bricons program allows the user to quickly start up applica-
tions by selecting the appropriate button from the display
and pressing the left mouse button. A maximum of up to six-
teen main menu buttons can be displayed. Each main menu but-
ton can launch an application or pop-up a sub menu contain-
ing more buttons. The buttons can be represented as a bitmap
or as text.
Information on how the program is to present each button
(either as a bitmap or text) and the application that is to
be executed if that button is selected is contained in
script file called .briconsrc. This file should be stored
in the same directory as the program is executed from.
The .briconsrc file contains a number of key words which are
used to indicate if the button label is some text or a bit-
map and if the button is to pop-up a sub menu or launch a
program. These key words are explained below:
The .briconsrc file should start with the keyword %icon or
%text The key word %icon indicates that the button label is
a bitmap. This should be followed by the file name contain-
ing the bitmap. For example:
%icon clock.icon
The key word %text indicates that the button label is some
text. The text can be split over three lines by using the
new line character \n. For example:
%text Line1\nLine2\nLine3
would be presented as:
Line1
Line2
Line3
Once a button has been selected it is prevented from
accidentally being re-selected by "graying out" the button
(default action). Sometimes however it maybe desirable to
allow the button to be selected more than once. This can be
done be using the keyword %icon+ or %text+
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BRICONS(l) MISC. REFERENCE MANUAL PAGES BRICONS(l)
The next line in the .briconsrc file should either contain
the key word %sub_menu or the application to be started. If
the name of an application is given then a check is made to
see if such an program can be executed. If the program does
not exist or is not in the users path then an error message
is printed and the button associated with the application is
ignored.
If the key word %sub_menu is used then a pop-up sub menu is
created. Any further buttons defined in the briconsrc file
will appear in the sub menu for that button until the key
word %end_sub_menu is found. A maximum of ten buttons are
allowed in a single pop-up sub menu.
Any line in the .briconsrc file starting with a # character
is treated as a comment and will be ignored.
This program has four default buttons labelled source, edit,
help and quit. The edit button allows the user to edit
there icon file (default being an empty source button causes
the program to distory all the current buttons being
displayed and re-read the icon file and display the new but-
tons.
OPTIONS
bricons accepts all of the standard X Toolkit command
line options along with the additional options listed below:
-file
Tells the program to read this file instead of the
default file.
-col Indicates the number of buttons in a column before
starting a new row. The default number of columns is
15.
-help
Tells the program the path for the help file.
-sensitive
Toggle used for default "graying out" of selected but-
tons. If set to TRUE then buttons will "gray out"
unless specifically requested not to.
-bmdir
This program will search the default bitmap directory
(./bitmaps) for any bitmaps that are to be used to
represent buttons. If you wish to add different bitmap
directories then use this command line argument fol-
lowed by a colon separated list of path names. For
example if the program needs to find bitmaps in two
different directories then the following can be entered
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BRICONS(l) MISC. REFERENCE MANUAL PAGES BRICONS(l)
at the command line:
bricons -bmdir /usr/local/bitmaps:/usr/mydir/bitmaps
-default
Toggle used for including/not including the default
Edit Icons button in the bricons program. This flag
expects a Boolean value. If the bricons program is
called with the -default flag set to False then the
Edit Icons button is not included.
X DEFAULTS
The bricons program reads the .Xdefaults file and Xbricons
resource file during startup and uses the appropriate
resource specification to customise the appearance or
characteristics of its display. This program understands
all of the core resource names and classes as well as:
no_of_cols
Specifies the number of buttons in a column.
icon_file
Specifies path name for icon file to be read.
help_file
Specifies path name for help file.
icon_dirs
Specifies path name for bitmap directories.
SETTING BITMAP DIRECTORIES
This section explains how to specify bitmap file paths using
the .Xdefaults file. For the quickest and simplest method
see the OPTIONS section under -bmdir.
This program will search the default bitmap directory for
any bitmaps that are to be used to represent buttons. If the
user wishes the program to search other directories for bit-
map files then this should be specified in the users
.X11defaults file. *BitmapFilePath: should be added fol-
lowed by colon separated path names where the bitmap files
can be found. For example:
*BitmapFilePath: /usr/local/include/X11/bitmaps:/usr/mydir/bitmaps
RESOURCE FILES
The Xbricons file specifies the required resources. To make
sure the program uses the resources file set the following
line in your .login:
setenv XUSERFILESEARCHPATH ~/app_defaults/%N
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BRICONS(l) MISC. REFERENCE MANUAL PAGES BRICONS(l)
and place all all resources in the app_defaults directory.
WIDGETS
The bricons program is a toolkit-based application which
consists of a combination of widgets. In order to specify
resources, it is useful to know the hierarchy of the widgets
which compose bricons. In the list below, indentation indi-
cates hierarchical structure. The widget class name is
given first, followed by the widget instance name.
Xbricons toplevel
Form box
Command action[18]
OverrideShell popup_shell
Form popup_layout
Command sub_action[10]
EXAMPLE
Below is an example of a simple .briconsrc file:
# <-- a line starting with a '#' is a comment line
#
# Bri's icon file
#
# first line must have keyword %icon or %text
# to indicate if button is an icon
%icon calculator
xcalc
%text Games\n sub\n menu
%sub_menu
%text xeyes
xeyes
%text othello
othello
%end_sub_menu
BUGS
After selecting the source button the buttons may not be
re-displayed correctly. Selecting the source button a
second time may help.
AUTHOR
Bruce R Ingram, University of Kent at Canterbury.
Sun Release 4.1 Last change: 28th March 1992 4