1 Introduction

rTc is a simple to use, but fully functional program launcher utility for Unix workstations running X/Motif. As well as the usual feature of executing commands, it also allows the user to :- customize the command before it is executed (ie. allowing the user to specify a printer); limit the number of invocations of a particular command (ie. only allowing the user to start one instance of a word processor); a help display system (including optional HTML support); a clock (with reminder facility); and mailbox and disk-space watchers ("how many messages do I have ?" and "how much space is there ?") .

Since rTc is a simple X client it can be used with any window manager, in fact if you link it with IXI"s Wintif(TM) library (blatant advertising :-)) it will even look and feel like a Windows 3.1 program!

Copying

This program is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

The HTML browser widget is Copyright (c) 1993, Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois (see the file libhtmlw/HTML.c for its license).

The GIF reading function used in the HTML browser is Copyright (c) 1990 - 1994, David Koblas. (koblas@netcom.com), see the file src/gifread.c for its license.

This version

This release is in response to the extended beta test I had for version 2.0, a few bug-fixes (mainly on platforms I hadn"t tested on) and the re-introduction of audio feedback. The rest of this document assumes I am talking about version 2.0.

The raison d"être for this new, improved version of rTc has been to increase configurability, both at compile time (if you don"t want a feature you shouldn"t need to compile it in) and run-time. This has been achieved by re-writing the program to be be more modular (I would say object-orientated, but I don"t know what it means). There are no interdependencies between different options, so any may be left out, and it is easy to add new ones without having to worry about combatability with existing code.

Run-time configurability has been increased so that the user can specify:- the style of the program (do error messages use dialogs or a status line); the type of messages displayed (only Errors, Errors+Warnings, Errors+Warnings+Output); the type of user (expert or beginner, beginner mode has a simpler interface). There is a also the facility to specify two description files, a system and a personal one. The personal one may add entries to the menus specified in the system file, but not remove them.

A list of some the features of rTc are :-

• Simple line-based menu descriptions.
• Two input files, the system one is read first, the personal one may add entries to the menus.
• Personally tested on 4 more platforms (SunOs, Solaris 2.2, HPUX (all X11R5/Motif 1.2), Linux X11R6/Motif 2.0))
• A much improved help system with:
  • HTML support.
  • the text may now be stored in separate files.
  • the help files are searched for in a colon separated list of directories (a set-able X-resource).
• support for multiple screens.
• bitmaps (and, if supported XPM) files are searched for in a colon separated list of directories (a set-able X-resource).
• improved clock/reminder. Reminders may now be set on any day and will be remembered across sessions.
• a new mail-box watcher (ala biff), displays how many messages in the specified mailbox.
• a disk space watcher (displays how much space is free in a specified partition).
• a re-start option has been included to re-read the description files.
• user-defined panels, allowing the user to configure a command before it is executed.
• hierarchical (ie walking) menus.
• limits may be set on the number of times a program may be executed.

There has, unfortunetly, been a few incompatible changes in the description syntax between versions 1.3 and 2.0. I have provided a small awk script to convert version 1.3 files to the new syntax (update.awk). The list of changes is :-

• f.title has been replaced with f.label (only in menus, in panels it has been removed).
• f.exec has been changed to f.button (if in a menu) or f.command (if in a panel).
• f.info and f.msg-area have been discontinued.

To use the update.awk script requires a version of awk to be installed on your system, simply type :-

% awk -f update.awk input

Where input is the old (v1.3) rTc description file. The new file is written to stdout.

While the awk script corrects the syntax, the options (particularly the time options) may need to be modified by hand to get identical results.

The latest version of the source code can always be found via:-

This version was originally intended to ship before Christmas, then I delayed it until after Christmas, now easter is leaving us fast. I"m sorry, I"ve had a lot on recently (moved jobs, moved cities, moved house, oh and of course the usual family and personal problems). One of the advantages of my new job is the increase in the number of architectures I have access to: I still have access to Linux and SGI Irix 5.2, but now SunOs, Solaris, HPUX and AIX have been added (AIX hasn"t been tested yet).

I had intended to write some new features specific to X11R6 in this version, unfortunetly I am still having some problems with Motif 2.0 under X11R6 on Linux (my main development environment). I have managed to compile and test rTc under X11R6/Motif 2.0, but my Motif 2.0 setup is not yet stable enough to use it as the base for development (if you"re interested---the file selection box doesn"t work at all, and XmGetPixmap appears to go into an infinite loop).

As I had slipped so far and still have no idea how long it will be before I managed to get X11R6 and Motif 2.0 working happily together, I"ve bit the bullet and decided to ship what I"ve got now.

I hope to include some Motif 2.0 specifics (ie. spin-box, combo-box, container, and notebook widgets in panels), however if you would rather see R6 specifics (ie. session management---not much use until there are session aware clients) in the next version (2.1) then if you let me know, I can see what the relative response is.

However I don"t expect another release for a while as I"d like to put off active development (ie. I"ll only be bug fixing) to give me some time to write another program, change-is-as-good-as-a-rest and all that.

I"d like to thank all those who have contacted me with ideas/requests for enhancements/or bug reports, especially Mark Davis (mark@taylor.infi.net) who had lots of ideas and infinite patience while we tried to port it to SCO ODT.

I could"t put every request into this version, maybe next time...