KUAL: Kindle Unified Application Launcher (v2.7)

[eureka]

Originally Posted by stepk

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but on KT 5.1.2 when I swipe over the Menu button nothing happens. I do see that the button flashes as I swipe over it. I did check that the path to KindleLauncher az2 is correct.

Pretty much possible without doing something wrong. AFAIR, Menu button in early KT firmwares had class "menu", not id "menu". If "#menu" was introduced just with 5.3.2, then this script will not work on earlier firmwares without adaptation. I will not adapt it, because 5.3.2 should be sufficient to all and it's a POC anyway

[twobob]

right. a really helpful thing then would be a script that just "pops up" (alert?) the searchbars various DOM elements. then it could easily be adapted by others to be more resilient.

People choose to stay on versions generally to keep running bit-rotted applications that would fail. or features. etc.

Thanks for the excellent tip on stuffing pillow with scripts via interrogatePillow.

Assuming that this fails "elegantly" (it appears to) there should be no harm in including it regardless. but I will obviously run that by Ixtab get his thoughts too. much obliged.

[eureka]

Originally Posted by twobob

right. a really helpful thing then would be a script that just "pops up" (alert?) the searchbars various DOM elements. then it could easily be adapted by others to be more resilient.

Just review /usr/share/webkit-1.0/pillow/search_bar.html

Originally Posted by twobob

Thanks for the excellent tip on stuffing pillow with scripts via interrogatePillow.

This is very old way.

[stepk]

twobob, I'm working on an aloop.sh variant that adds a group index. The idea is for java to use the index to group similar entries together and colorize zebra-style. Useful you think? It will be later today because right now I have an emergency.
BTW, do you object at changing the separator character from the current one to hex 01? The current one is actually > 255 and sort doesn't like that (in its option list). I looked at the java class and it seems to me any char will do, as long as it's guaranteed to not be part of the label.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by stepk

twobob, I'm working on an aloop.sh variant that adds a group index. The idea is for java to use the index to group similar entries together and colorize zebra-style. Useful you think? It will be later today because right now I have an emergency.
BTW, do you object at changing the separator character from the current one to hex 01? The current one is actually > 255 and sort doesn't like that (in its option list). I looked at the java class and it seems to me any char will do, as long as it's guaranteed to not be part of the label.

An un-printable control character might be hard to find problems with.

Why not a printable one, which can not appear in a file or pathname?
":", "|", are two that are often used.

Where "|" might be a poor choice if the "action" can be a one-line script.
But the dir path separator ":" should be safe.

[twobob]

I was trying to avoid using non printing chars. the : and | chars are for sure used in some descriptions so I was trying to avoid them...

^ maybe???

[eureka]

Originally Posted by twobob

I was trying to avoid using non printing chars. the : and | chars are for sure used in some descriptions so I was trying to avoid them...

^ maybe???

Maybe turn back to XML, ditching custom line-oriented format?

[silver18]

ALERT: Noob's speaking!

You could also ask developers to provide a new pair of config/menu files that suit this launcher.
I don't mind spending some minutes if this makes your work easier (and improves the launcher).


If I completely misunderstood the matter, please forgive me!

[twobob]

Originally Posted by eureka

Maybe turn back to XML, ditching custom line-oriented format?

hmph. no. I would just re-internalise it as Java first.

[twobob]

Originally Posted by silver18

ALERT: Noob's speaking!

You could also ask developers to provide a new pair of config/menu files that suit this launcher.
I don't mind spending some minutes if this makes your work easier (and improves the launcher).


If I completely misunderstood the matter, please forgive me!

you can just use the old style one mate. (the "Helper" download has a menu/config pair in)

[knc1]

Originally Posted by twobob

I was trying to avoid using non printing chars. the : and | chars are for sure used in some descriptions so I was trying to avoid them...

^ maybe???

I wonder what that means in Windoze.
Maybe escape the description (print -q ....) (if ash has that) and then handle them escaped.

[eureka]

Originally Posted by silver18

You could also ask developers to provide a new pair of config/menu files that suit this launcher.
I don't mind spending some minutes if this makes your work easier (and improves the launcher).

BTW, there is a .desktop format specification. It's used in Linux distributions for describing program items which, for example, could be launched in desktop environment. It's a simple INI-like format supporting many useful declarations like icon property, list of categories for fitting program into hierarchical menu, localization etc. This format provides extensibility. There is also Desktop Menu specification to define how menu is constructed from directories with .desktop files.

This is certainly a bit complicated for current situation, but if there will be movement to discard legacy Yifan Lu's format it'd be nice to adopt existing standard.

[twobob]

That's a decent plan IMHO.

as you say perhaps not immediately but certainly "going forward" it would be the better option.

It would make the bits ripped out of debian have more value instantly also - as an added bonus.

I'm reading up on the links you have provided. Excellent research as ever

[stepk]

Me thinks this launcher is nearly good to go once the separator matter is settled. The desktop spec is certainly excellent, but a launcher is just a launcher, people spend their time inside apps instead of launchers. And if we want to improve the launcher me thinks it's the GUI and overall usability that make a difference. Just my 2 cents.
Back to the separator character, hex 01 is just as good as any other, it's only used in one place in the java script, and in my experience all terminals show it very clearly. It would be different if we had to print it on paper. OTOH, any characters which is illegal in a pathname will work, because the splitter routine can count the fields as it separates them out, and stop after 2 separators to split (in order) index, label, command path+command arguments. As you can see, as long as index (a number) and label (a string that aloop.sh can strip of any instances of the separator character itself) do not include the separator character, we'll be fine.
Having said this, I will go with the desktop spec if you want to invest in it. I just don't know where would the launcher display the icons...

[twobob]

okay. let's give it a go your way.

Sounds great.


B011 device ey? nice choice