How to Start a Program from a Menu Entry when...

[O.F.I.N.S.I.S.]

Hi.

The title says it all - I think

I like to run programs without to install these programs, So, there's programs from .sfs files, RoxApps, AppImages etc.pp. But it's a bit uncomfortable to open external directories first to run a RoxApp or an AppImage. Smarter way is to run them just by a menu entry as it would work if these programs would be installed as usual. A .desktop file placed on the desktop would do it also.

Symbolic links will work fine unless the order of drives/partitions are changing when booting from different sources, like USB flash drives. In such cases the boot directory is not sda1 (as usual) and other partitions on the flash drive won't appear anymore as sda2, sda3 etc.pp.

So, in my LazY Puppies I've established some additional environment variables. It's content may change from time to time depending on where to boot the Puppy from (e.g. internal HD or USB flash drive)

E.g.: one environment variable is $MYPORTABLEAPPS.
In my 32bit LazY Puppy this would be e.g.:
- /mnt/sda1/PortableApplications

or in my 64bit LazY Puppy this would be:
- /mnt/sda1/PortableApplications64

Another environment variable is $MYROXAPPS.
Which currently is equal in my 32bit and 64bit LazY Puppy:
- /mnt/sda2/RoxApps

But when booting from USB flash drive this could be also:
- /mnt/sdc1/PortableApplications64

or even

/mnt/sdc2/RoxApps

for the RoxApps to run.


So, no matter what's the content of $MYPORTABLEAPPS I can run OpenShot-v2.5.1-x86_64.AppImage by a menu entry if the Exec= line looks like this:

Exec=sh -c "$MYPORTABLEAPPS/PortableLinux/Video/OpenShot-v2.5.1-x86_64.AppImage"

Or even for the RoxApp version:

Exec=sh -c "$MYROXAPPS/Video/OpenShot-v2.5.1-x86_64.AppImage"

Global environment variables can be defined e.g. in /etc/profile or /etc/profile.local. They need to be exported.

E.g.: export MY_GLOBAL_EV_VAR=PathToTheProgamOrDirectory

[mikeslr]

Hi O.F.I.N.S.I.S.,

I suspect you've stumbled into a variation of the problem I sought advice about here, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 70#1049970. I didn't follow up employing pedido's advice, so don't know if it would actually work.

You might pm jrb. I think he worked on a similar problem recently.

[Mike Walsh]

@ O.F.I.N.S.I.S (or RSH, or LazYPuppY....take your pick! Gordon Bennett, Dieter, why do you keep changing your Forum "handle"? It gets bloody confusing for the rest of us, y'know.... )

I digress.... A-hem!

I had a similar problem myself some time ago. I found jafadmin's 'Udev-rules-wizard' fixed the problem for me, but from the other end; rather than assigning variables, it "stabilizes" your external mount-points so they effectively become 'absolute', rather than 'relative'. Hence, you can easily set up standard MenuEntries, although I like to make 'em call a launch script in /root/my-applications/bin rather than calling them direct; allows for a bit more 'flexibility' if you want to change things, without needing to reset with a 'fixmenus' every time.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 1d862f88d0

I don't use it anymore, for the simple reason that the Seagate external desktop drive I was using (on a USB 3.0 connection) got "cannabilized" (removed the plastic outer casing and the USB to SATA 'bridge card'), and it's now doing duty as a secondary internal drive in this new HP tower via its standard SATA3 connector instead. But it's damned effective, and very simple to use & to set-up.

Just a thought, you understand. You've already come up with one solution; perhaps this might be worth a look, too.


Mike.

[O.F.I.N.S.I.S.]

Uh, this is going to be a very long post.

Hi Mike Walsh.

First when I entered the forum and being RSH for a long time, I made a mistake when changing my password. I couldn't reproduce it and the forum function to receive the password (and/or to activate an account) didn't work on my mail address. So I couldn't log in anymore being RSH.

I just can't recall what happened to my LazY Puppy account and why I couldn't login anymore.

To join the forum being ITSMERSH was possible only, because of rockedge created an email address for me after I got in contact to smokey01 by mail telling about the impossibilities to create a new account by the use of several german email providers. Never received the activation mail.

After I was banned being ITSMERSH, sequentially I visited the forum from time to time and found the problem still exists, keeps new members from joining the forum. So, I gave hotmail.com (someone mentioned hotmail.com in a post) a try to find out and this did work immediately. Meanwhile all user names I'd tried were not longer usable. So I created O.F.I.N.S.I.S. (Our Future Is Not Set In Stone).

The story of "leaving the forum" when I was ITSMERSH by asking Flash for being banned should be known by forum members. So, no need to dig into this again.

No need to write O.F.I.N.S.I.S. all the time - just call me RSH or Rainer.

***

Yes, I know about the UDEV thingy by jafadmin. That's pretty good if one wants to have a static mount point for a specific USB flash drive and/or USB hard drive.

At my home computers my LazY Puppies are installed onto the internal hard drive - usually to sda1. But on my computers e.g. at my girlfriends home or in my rehearsal room I'm booting from USB drives. So, on these computers my boot drive changes to /mnt/sdc1 or /mnt/sde1.

The UDEV thingy is not usable then.

***

All my drives that is used to boot from generally do have three primary partitions plus one swap partition. At the beginning my boot partition was formatted to FAT32. Though, FAT32 can't store RoxApps. So, RoxApps won't work by clicking the directory. That's why I started to give a 2nd partition to my boot drive formatted to ext. Later I added the 3rd partition also formatted to ext.

I think it was sc0ttman one day who came up with the menu pipes in openbox. These menu pipes gave possibilities to have external scripts, files, RoxApps and some more within the openbox menu. So, I could start my RoxApps and scripts just by the menu.

I examined the code and created scripts to create menu pipes for JWM, as I was tired each time switching to openbox wm and editing all the files of openbox to have a menu equal like in JWM by default.

***

Since I'm using my LazY Puppies without save files or save directories in general from the beginning, I searched for a solution to have my 3 partitions known by the system, similar like /mnt/home when using a save file or directory.

So, I created a script which is examining /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE and builds a file where some information is stored like the boot partition. Since my drives where to boot from do have 3 partitions I named them:

Boot Partition
Parallel Partition 1
Parallel Partition 2

Which nowadays is sym-linked at boot to /mnt/home, /mnt/home2 and /mnt/home3.

In the early stages I used the created file containing that information to have easy access to directories on these 2 parallel partitions. Later I made them environment variables, so when I'm entering echo $MYBOOTPRT into a terminal it returns e.g.: /mnt/sda1 or even /mnt/sde1 etc - depending on where to boot from.

Entering echo $MYBOOTDIR into a terminal returns e.g. /mnt/sda1/ArtStudio64 for my own build of BionicPup64.

During the years of development I expanded the use of environment variables.

Here's the terminal output when I'm entering $MY into the terminal and then hit TAB two times.

Code: Select all

root# $MY
$MYARDOURUNLIMITEDRAM        $MYBOOTPRT                   $MYMNTHOMELINKS              $MYRSHSCRIPTBOX
$MYARUNCLIPIT                $MYCLIPBOARDDIR              $MYMODULES                   $MYSARASCRIPTBOX
$MYARUNDESKREFRESH           $MYCOPYFILESINTOOS           $MYMOUSEACCEL                $MYSAVEONEXITGUI
$MYARUNDESKUPDATE4VARIOMENU  $MYCURSORTHEME               $MYMOUSETHRESHOLD            $MYSCREENSAVERDELAY
$MYARUNDESKWINMANAGER        $MYDESKTOPICONS              $MYNEMAUTOSTARTLIST          $MYSCREENSAVERFLAG
$MYARUNDOCKBARX              $MYDRIVEICONS                $MYNEMDIR                    $MYSCRIPTS
$MYARUNDUNST                 $MYFILES                     $MYNEMRAPPDIR                $MYSLEEPTIME
$MYARUNFIREWALLSTATUS        $MYGLOBALFONTSIZE            $MYNUMLOCKOPT                $MYSTARTUPVMGROUP
$MYARUNFLSYNCLIENT           $MYGLOBSETSDIR               $MYPAR1PRT                   $MYSYMLINKSINLIST
$MYARUNFREEMEMAPPLET         $MYICONPARTITIONS            $MYPAR2PRT                   $MYSYMLINKSOUTLIST
$MYARUNLAZYTOM               $MYICONPLACEEDGEGAP          $MYPCONFIG                   $MYTIMEZONE
$MYARUNLIBTOPMENU            $MYICONPLACEORIENTATION      $MYPERSONALSETTINGSPOPUP     $MYTOPLESSAPPKIOSK
$MYARUNNETMONWCE             $MYICONPLACESPACING          $MYPORTABLEAPPS              $MYTRASHDIR
$MYARUNNETWORKTRAY           $MYICONPLACESTARTGAP         $MYPSLDIR                    $MYTTFREEMEMPARTITIONS
$MYARUNOBDPAGER              $MYICONTHEME                 $MYPSLIB                     $MYVMGROUPWALLPAPERS
$MYARUNPARCELLITE            $MYINTMODULES                $MYPSLIBDIR                  $MYWALLPAPER
$MYARUNPMCPUTEMP             $MYJWMAUTOHIDETRAY           $MYRFPICONSIZE               $MYWELCOMEFIRSTBOOT
$MYARUNPOWERAPPLET           $MYJWMONTOPTRAY              $MYROXAPPS                   $MYWINDOWMANAGER
$MYARUNRETROVOL              $MYLABELPARTITIONS           $MYRSHINTROXAPPS             $MYWINEAPPS
$MYARUNWATCHPROCESSES        $MYLINUXAPPS                 $MYRSHROXAPPS                $MYWPDIR
$MYAUTOMATEDLINKS            $MYLOCALTIME                 $MYRSHROXAPPS2               $MYXFETRASHDIR
$MYAUTOSTARTAPPS             $MYLOOPDEVICES               $MYRSHROXAPPS3               
$MYAUTOSTARTFROMLIST         $MYLPED                      $MYRSHROXAPPS4               
$MYBOOTDIR                   $MYLPEDCONFIG                $MYRSHROXAPPS5               
root# $MY

After this I invented the LazY Puppy Scripting Library. So, I'm also using FUNCTIONS as environment variables.

Here's the terminal output when I'm entering psl into the terminal and then hit TAB two times.

Code: Select all

root# psl
Display all 111 possibilities? (y or n)
psl_1stucase          psl_getappcategory    psl_getwp             psl_noext             psl_setwinpos
psl_all1stucase       psl_getappcomment     pslib                 psl_noextbn           psl_setwinsize
psl_all1stucasers     psl_getappexec        psl_icon2script       psl_okmsg             psl_setwp
psl_backupinitrd      psl_getappgenname     psl_imageviewer       psl_okmsg1            psl_slideshow
psl_bin2morse         psl_getappicon        psl_info              psl_okmsg2            psl_soft_wallpapers
psl_cleaninitrd       psl_getappicon4gtk    psl_initwingeo        psl_opendir           psl_sortlist
psl_cleansfsbackup    psl_getappname        psl_jwmpiperefresh    psl_qr                psl_sound
psl_cleantemp         psl_getcfgfile        psl_launcher          psl_quickpoweroff     psl_soundrec
psl_cleantmp          psl_getcfgfileprefix  psl_legend            psl_quickreboot       psl_spacereplace
psl_cleantopless      psl_getdrivefrompath  psl_lp2prefix         psl_recordx2avi       psl_stoprec
psl_combobox          psl_getdriveonly      psl_makerunscript     psl_replace           psl_strlcase
psl_date              psl_getfirstchar      psl_mdselect          psl_savewinsize       psl_strlen
psl_date4filename     psl_getfreedrivemem   psl_mfselect          psl_screenframe       psl_strucase
psl_deskrefresh       psl_getinputsource    psl_midiconnect       psl_screenh           psl_text2bin
psl_dev               psl_getlineswitch     psl_mkgettext         psl_screenshot        psl_time
psl_development       psl_getlp2prefix      psl_mkmenu            psl_screenw           psl_tree
psl_dirdir            psl_getmntpath        psl_mkmenutreewidget  psl_setdesktop        psl_wincenter
psl_drivelist         psl_getpuprodir       psl_mkprj2menu        psl_setinputsource    psl_xdte
psl_edit              psl_getvar            psl_mkprjmenu         psl_setlineswitch     psl_yesno
psl_errmsg            psl_getvolume         psl_mksvgbutton       psl_setmcvolume       
psl_extonly           psl_getwingeo         psl_mksvgguihead      psl_setvmgroup        
psl_fixmenus          psl_getwinpos         psl_mylang            psl_setvolume         
psl_funcs             psl_getwinsize        psl_mypup             psl_setwingeo         
root# psl

Example: psl_getdrivefrompath /mnt/sdc3/Images/Testimage.png returns the following:

Code: Select all

root# psl_getdrivefrompath /mnt/sdc3/Images/Testimage.png
sdc3
root#

All scripts from this LazY Puppy Scripting Library are stored at $MYROXAPPS/RSH or even $MYRSHROXAPPS. They are loaded at bootup from automated generated code echoed into /etc/profile.local.user (which is called after /etc/profile.local).

So, my all LazY Puppies know their working environment which gives me easy and immediate access to all my external files, programs and scripts.

JUST BY CLICKING A MENU ENTRY!

Either by the default (but extended JWM) menu or by the menu pipes.

To store settings of programs like e.g. Geany I'm doing a right-click onto /root/.config/geany, choosing Store to S.I.N. and it stores the directory /root/.config/geany within my N.E.M.E.S.I.S. directory, which is a sub-directory at $MYBOOTDIR. Then it sym-links it back to /root/.config/geany. S.I.N. is a short form of Store In NEMESIS.

The Store to S.I.N. function is a RoxApp created automatically at boot.

Haha, even though this is just a short description and short listing of what I can do by running my LazY Puppies without save files/folders, I'm just hoping this wasn't too much confusing.

Environment variables are very, very useful!

EDIT:

You might pm jrb. I think he worked on a similar problem recently.

Done.

[Mike Walsh]

Morning, Rainer. (Sorry; I couldn't quite remember your name....I thought it was 'Dieter'. )

Yes, I remember most of the 'saga' now you mention it. As you say, no need to go into it all again. And I definitely remember all that business with rockedge providing you with a 'custom' email addy.

We thought we'd lost you for a while! But, as it turns out, we hadn't....

I agree, variables are useful, though I'm still slowly getting the hang of them myself. A case of "Softly, softly, catchee monkee...", methinks. I'll get my head round 'em eventually....


Mike.

[mikeslr]

Paraphrasing, "A rosebush by any other name will still have thorns".

As a result of naming conventions used by different ethnic groups, languages used for record keeping in what had been the Russian Empire, spelling conventions and how different groups vocalize them, immigration to the US and my mother's preference, over the course of his life my dad was known by six names having, at a minimum, different vocalizations. When asked what his name was, he would often respond: "I don't care what you call me as long as it isn't late for dinner."

At any rate, glad you're back under any name.

[Mike Walsh]

Paraphrasing, "A rosebush by any other name will still have thorns".

As a result of naming conventions used by different ethnic groups, languages used for record keeping in what had been the Russian Empire, spelling conventions and how different groups vocalize them, immigration to the US and my mother's preference, over the course of his life my dad was known by six names having, at a minimum, different vocalizations. When asked what his name was, he would often respond: "I don't care what you call me as long as it isn't late for dinner."

At any rate, glad you're back under any name.

^^^ +1.


T'other Mike.

[jrb]

/mnt/sda2/RoxApps

But when booting from USB flash drive this could be also:
- /mnt/sdc1/PortableApplications64

or even

/mnt/sdc2/RoxApps

for the RoxApps to run.

Hi Rainer, I don't know whether you've solved this problem or not but I thought I would mention how I have dealt with it. In my Portabrowsers, which I no longer pursue owing to Mike Walsh's excellent and prolific Portable pursuits, I used the UUID of the disk or partition to identify where the application is installed and launch it using that information.

I'll use Palemoon-27.9.4SSE portable installer as my example as it is the simplest of my creations only giving a choice of one browser.

I use an install script, /usr/local/bin/PalemoonSSEinstall, (abbreviated here):

Code: Select all

#choose drive
echo "What drive would you like to install PalemoonPortable on? eg: sda3"
read DRVNM

#mount drive
mkdir /mnt/$DRVNM > /dev/null 2>&1
mount /dev/$DRVNM /mnt/$DRVNM > /dev/null 2>&1

#switch to drive
cd /mnt/$DRVNM

#identify Palemoon drive placement by uuid in case of flashdrive installs
rm /usr/local/bin/pmUUID > /dev/null 2>&1
echo /bin/bash > /usr/local/bin/pmUUID
sed -i 's|/bin/bash|#!/bin/bash|g' /usr/local/bin/pmUUID
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/pmUUID

UUIDPM2=`blkid /dev/$DRVNM | cut -d " " -f 2`
echo $UUIDPM2 >> /usr/local/bin/pmUUID
sed -i 's/"//g' /usr/local/bin/pmUUID
sed -i 's/UUID/UUIDPM/g' /usr/local/bin/pmUUID

This creates the file /usr/local/bin/pmUUID which will identify the app location. It also contains the app folder name, $PMDIR, but in the interests of brevity I left that out here.

Then I have a Launch file, /usr/local/bin/pmportable_launch in this case.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

if [ -e /usr/local/bin/pmUUID ]; then
  . /usr/local/bin/pmUUID
  DRVNM=`blkid | grep -e $UUIDPM | cut -d "/" -f 3- | cut -d ":" -f -1`
  echo $DRVNM
  mount /dev/${DRVNM} /mnt/${DRVNM} > /dev/null 2>&1
  if [ -e /mnt/$DRVNM/$PMDIR/palemoon ]; then
    cd /mnt/$DRVNM/$PMDIR
    /mnt/$DRVNM/$PMDIR/pm.sh "$@"
  else
    /usr/local/bin/PalemoonSSEinstall
  fi
else 
  /usr/local/bin/PalemoonSSEinstall
fi

Which reads /usr/local/bin/pmUUID and uses the information to launch the execute script in the app folder.

I hope this is of some use to you or anyone else interested.

Cheers, J

PS, If you want to look at the full scripts download palemoon_portainstall-27.9.4SSE-0.4.pet and have a look.

[O.F.I.N.S.I.S.]

"I don't care what you call me as long as it isn't late for dinner."

Yes, that's funny!

@ The Mike's

Thank you for liking my return.

@jrb

Yes, I solved everything by the use of environment variables. Makes my Puppy-Live and Development much easier.
Thanks for those examples about the UUID thingy. May have a look at this later.

[musher0]

Hello O.F.I.N.S.I.S.

You skip the menu part.

You open a console in the directory,
you type the name of the app, and
you hit the Enter key.

Works every time.

This post is also a comment about
life getting too complicated!

IHTH

[O.F.I.N.S.I.S.]

Hello O.F.I.N.S.I.S.
...
You open a console in the directory,
you type the name of the app, and
you hit the Enter key.

Works every time.
...

No, it doesn't. I tested it on my xWallpaper-GUI-3 which is a RoxApp in /mnt/sda2/RoxApps/RSH. It also doesn't work from within its directory trying to execute the scripts AppRun or xWallpaper-GUI-3.

It only seems to work every time on programs that being installed and can be found in $PATH:

Code: Select all

root# echo $PATH
/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/root/my-applications/bin:/usr/games
root#

Look at the attached images.
Also: my intention was to run these external programs easily without to first browse their directories.

Sorry, to proof you wrong!

[musher0]

Hello O.F.I.N.S.I.S.
...
You open a console in the directory,
you type the name of the app, and
you hit the Enter key.

Works every time.
...

No, it doesn't. I tested it on my xWallpaper-GUI-3 which is a RoxApp in /mnt/sda2/RoxApps/RSH. It also doesn't work from within its directory trying to execute the scripts AppRun or xWallpaper-GUI-3.

It only seems to work every time on programs that being installed and can be found in $PATH:

Code: Select all

root# echo $PATH
/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/root/my-applications/bin:/usr/games
root#

Look at the attached images.
Also: my intention was to run these external programs easily without to first browse their directories.

Sorry, to proof you wrong!

In console type

Code: Select all

./program

if not in a directory of the $PATH or add
your external disc to the PATH in the /etc/profile file
E.g.

Code: Select all

PATH="/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/local/bin:/root/my-applications/bin:/usr/games:/mnt/sda1/blabla/bin"

That should help.

[O.F.I.N.S.I.S.]

@musher0

Yes,

Code: Select all

./AppRun

works for my example above.

But that's just too many terminals opened. When I want to run a program I don't want to run a program plus a terminal to start it.

And: it's still too far from my intention to run external programs easily without to browse directories first. My solution using environment variables is working very well and makes my Puppy life and development much easier - without having multiple terminals opened.

Also: avoiding the terminal to start a program will avoid killing the program when accidentally closing the wrong terminal.

***

Adding the external disc to /etc/profile doesn't make any sense as this drive could be sda2 and next time on another computer sdc2 or even sde2. Looks like you didn't read my posts completely.

[musher0]

@musher0

Yes,

Code: Select all

./AppRun

works for my example above.

But that's just too many terminals opened. When I want to run a program I don't want to run a program plus a terminal to start it.

And: it's still too far from my intention to run external programs easily without to browse directories first. My solution using environment variables is working very well and makes my Puppy life and development much easier - without having multiple terminals opened.

Also: avoiding the terminal to start a program will avoid killing the program when accidentally closing the wrong terminal.

Sincere condoleances on the death of your terminal.
How many years do you get in Germany for "accidentally" killing a terminal?

But seriously:
you work things your way, and that's fine.

I'm not wrong for working things another way.

BFN.

[O.F.I.N.S.I.S.]

I'm not wrong for working things another way.

Yes, I understand this, I can accept this and I don't want to convert anyone doing things my way.

So, did I wrote or made some statements similar to this?
When?
Where?

I can't recall such statement of mine. Just presented an example of one way on how to run external programs via the .desktop file either from menu or desktop button/icon - which is far more quick than browsing directories and opening a terminal first.

I can move to Gudensberg directly, which is 26Km from my home or even the other direction around the planet which is 26Km plus some 40.000Km.

Jrb is using the UUID thingy to have a static identification of external drives, which seems to be also a direct move to Gudensberg.

By the way: there wasn't a death of the terminal. The program's being killed when closing the wrong terminal by accident. It's different...