Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[PaulR]

I've written a tiny BaCon/HUG program as a learning exercise. One of the callbacks starts another program but my program window remains 'unavailable' until the executed program terminates.

Is there any way to 'detach' the program I'm calling in the same way that <command> & or (<command> &) works in a terminal? so my program can continue?

I'm guessing that the callback isn't returning control to DISPLAY until the called program completes.

It occurs to me that I might be able to accomplish this by a TIMEOUT if I can read the button state rather than use a callback

Any help appreciated

Paul

[vovchik]

Dear PaulR,

I was going to say welcome to the kennels, but I see you have been here longer than I have As for BaCon, I am certain one of us can give you some advice. Not a bad idea to post the source, so what we can see where the problem is.

With kind regards,
vovchik

[PaulR]

Hi vovchik

Yes I've been a member for quite sometime but not an active user for ages, however I'm really enjoying using Puppy again!

The program works as expected generally, these are the relevant bits...

[vovchik]

Dear PaulR,

This should work for invoking a separate prog in a separate thread:

[PaulR]

Hi vovchik

Thanks for the assistance - I'm sure I tried appending an ampersand (as per my earlier post re the terminal) but I must have done something wrong.

Anyway, I used the syntax you suggested and it worked fine ie the program was launching in it's own thread and not tying up my program.

However, since I added some more code (the part dealing with postfix$ in the callback) it has reverted to the original problem.

Anyway, the program is designed to speed up searching on the net for Puppy related stuff - enter search terms, choose the search target and hit search. I just got tired of typing 'puppy linux' for every search!

I've attached the full source, perhaps you could cast an eye over it?

Many thanks

Paul

PS Is there a way to make the search button the default event when someone hits enter?

PPS I know there's a warning I need to sort out regarding a label/caption

EDIT: I've fixed the warning and edited the code below - the xalign property requires a value of '0.0' rather than '0' ... quirky! (personally I would have used -1/0/1 to indicate aligment, or better yet have LEFT, RIGHT, CENTER #defined - I'm going to do that now!).

[L18L]

Very nice.
At the moment I have running your prog in puppy precise.
Just changed
firefox
to
defaulthtmlviewer
and

[Mobeus]

Hello Paul

SYSTEM may work better for you in this case.

[PaulR]

L18L, glad you think it's useful, I can think of a few features to add...

- Use checkboxes to allow search of multiple sites (just found this is possible by passing site:somesite.com OR site:anothersite.com )

- Add a box to specify browser (and save that setting) but with hindsight your defaulthtmlviewer is probably better/easier. EDIT: not sure how all browsers would cope with the new-tab switch though?

- Allow user-defined sites to search (ie allow editing of the three existing sites)

I'm not keen on all these magic numbers for widget layout either.. now there's a project for someone - a BaCon HUG layout tool!

Mobeus, I haven't tried your idea but the BaCon docs about SYSTEM says;

"It causes the BaCon program to hold until the command has been completed."

...and that is the problem I have. Strange that it worked ok for a time but doesn't now. Echoing commandLine$ doesn't help much either...thinking!


Paul

[PaulR]

Well this is strange - I just modified the source to add the STOCK buttons and repositioned some of the widgets, re-compiled and now the program works properly i.e it seems to run in its own thread allowing re-use without closing the browser!

Paul

Here's the updated code - for anyone experimenting (like me!) you need to compile with the -j option to take account of the #define, for example:

# bacon -j psearch.bac

[Mobeus]

Paul,

Yes the docs do say that but that's not quite what happens. Run the code from the terminal with SYSTEM then with EXEC and you will see the difference.

Regards,
Mobeus

[PaulR]

Hi Mobeus

Haha, I'll try that a little later, many thanks (although see my last post the program is now working as intended!).

EDIT: Tried that, there's no discernible difference, both forms seems to work ok now.

Paul

[Mobeus]

Paul,

I tested your app, nice & handy too. Thanks!

It would not build as is on my system. It's Lupu 5.10 and has the old hug.so from 2011.

Just FYI, to get it to build (and work without hanging) I used the latest bacon and hug.bac and made these changes.

[PaulR]

Great, I understand.

I've been working on using checkboxes such that a user can search either Google OR one or both sites. Finally got the checkbox logic figured out (after fighting with nested if statements all afternoon!), should have a modified version ready later today or tomorrow.

Thanks for the help

Paul

[PaulR]

OK the next version is ready

Just one thing I need to know:

What will be the effect of the -new-tab switch if I change the called program to defaulthtmlviewer and the browser is something other than Firefox?

I'll build and compress the executable and upload it to some webspace with the source for anyone to access.

Paul

[L18L]