Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

8-bit · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 3012 Location: Oregon

I had a wild thought of incorporating a terminal window in my usb floppy formatting program.
I want it to be able to display the output of the formatting command and also
the dos writing command. Anyone know GTK code to do this?

But I thought "Why not take it a little further and have it work for internal floppy drives."
With a few tests included, It could become a floppy format utility for both types of floppy drives.

But to me, currently the rxvt window as part of the GUI display would clean things up.
So, with Barry's permission, do you think a GTK program for all floppy drives is a good idea?

sunburnt · Joined: 08 Jun 2005 Posts: 4001 Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

Hi 8-bit; This is how to start rxvt and have it run a command:

disciple · Posted: Thu 15 Oct 2009, 06:24 Post subject:

Also, Barry recently (in the last year or so) added a bash script that enables the -h (IIRC) option, so it remains open after running the comman, if you call it as xterm instead of rxvt (IIRC).

If you just want to display output you could also look at the way Zigbert does it with gtkdialog in Pburn, or the way he used to do it with xdialog (I think that was better.
If you are writing a C program and don't want to call an external program you could use libvte, but I think it is over the top if you just want to display output... there must be a simpler way.

8-bit · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 3012 Location: Oregon

disciple · Posted: Thu 15 Oct 2009, 22:31 Post subject:

It looks to me like Gparted deals with floppies...

8-bit · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 3012 Location: Oregon

Very true!
I got a request of adding a little error checking and returning to the main program window after displaying an error message.

But I also found out something interesting in making some routines.
If I used 'done' as the final line of the subroutine, the program would not run.
When I substituted "return" in it's place, everthing worked.
I even had the main dialog set up as a routine I could call.
But I wonder why "done' worked in Barry's program and not mine.
It was set up in exactly the same format.

disciple · Posted: Thu 15 Oct 2009, 22:56 Post subject:

You're talking about shell scripts now aren't you? Do they both use the same shell?

8-bit · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 3012 Location: Oregon

Barry's Program is in menu/system/Format Floppy Disk.
It only handles internal floppy drives.
Mine handles external USB floppy drives.
As to what he used to write his, a script, I do not know.
But it looked like gtkdialog3 in style.
His is /usr/sbin/floppy-format.sh if you want to examine it.
My early version of USB floppy formatter is a Pet available from
The Pet Store. It uses GTKdialog3 which is included in puppy and also uses ufiformat which is included in the PET.
I did not write ufiformat.
I only wrote a GTKdialog script to give it a GUI interface.

disciple · Posted: Fri 16 Oct 2009, 00:57 Post subject:

His script uses a while statement: while [some condition]; do [some tasks]; [done].
done is needed to mark the end of the do statement. You don't have a while/do, so you don't need it.

8-bit · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 3012 Location: Oregon

Thank you for the clarification of use of 'done'.
I learn as I go along.

8-bit · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 3012 Location: Oregon

What I am after with my USB floppy program written with gtkdialog3 is an interface that has a window for displaying output from the formatting command.
I investigated an open source copyrighted program called pyfloppy.
But it requires python to run.
I have played with the python script for it and actually got it to work with a USB floppy.
But I would like to keep size down by just using gtkdialog3 and ufiformat.
I will attach the original pyfloppy so you can see what I mean.
It only works with internal floppy drives, not USB floppys.
To run it from it's directory using Python, you type 'python pyfloppy.py' in a terminal opened in the directory.
Or set run action to python.

disciple · Posted: Sat 17 Oct 2009, 17:17 Post subject:

Have you looked at the two ways zigbert has used with pburn?

8-bit · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 3012 Location: Oregon

8-bit · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 3012 Location: Oregon

I also played around with the tailing thing and although I can get some of the output of an external command to display in a window, it is only after the external program completes.

Part of my attempt was a code line:

sunburnt · Joined: 08 Jun 2005 Posts: 4001 Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

8-bit; If you want the GUI to remain visible while your format program runs
in Xterm, use " &" on the end of the xterm command to background it.
The only problem is that the GUI won`t know when Xterm is finished.
In some of my apps. like this that was a problem, it may not be for yours.