Re: How to get rid of kalarm AND promote zenity plus good tool usage

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Mon, 2004-08-09 at 20:26 +0200, Mathias Hasselmann wrote:
> Just seen the following conversation on IRC (#gnome channel):
> 
> <shaunm_> how do I get rid of kalarm
> <shaunm_> oh wily little kalarmd
> <pycage> #! /bin/sh
> <pycage>                                                                                
> <pycage> TIMEOUT=$(zenity --entry --text="Enter timeout:" --entry-text="3m")
> <pycage> sleep $TIMEOUT
> <pycage> zenity --info --text="Alarm!"
> 
> In my opinion this tiny script suggested by psydave should be included
> into the very next release of the GNOME Desktop, because:
> 
> 1) It prevents people from asking for some kalarm replacement
> 2) Promotes zenity
> 3) Demonstrates how to solve such trivial tasks
> 
> 
> --> snip: the script in plain text --> ---------------------------------
> 
> #!/bin/bash
> #
> # Some tiny script simulating kalarm and promoting zenity
> # Author: psydave
> #
> 
> TIMEOUT=$(zenity --entry --text="Enter timeout:" --entry-text="3m")
> sleep $TIMEOUT
> zenity --info --text="Alarm!"
> 

FWIW, I wasn't trying to replace kalarm.  I tried it out because someone
in the channel was looking for a gnome-ish replacement, and I wanted to
see what it was like.  I set up an alarm to recur every five minutes,
just to play.  Then I closed kalarm.  In another few minutes, there was
that alarm.  So I was more asking "how do I stop this thing, which I've
already closed?"  The answer, of course, was to kill kalarmd.

That said, I have a warm spot in my heart for wicked cool shell scripts.

That said, while this is cool for geeks, if an alarm system is really
wanted as default functionality in the desktop, a real interface should
be designed and implemented for it.

That said, if somebody wants such a thing, they should just write the
code, possibly with some consultation with the usability team.  I don't
want to encourage anybody to clog up d-d-l with theoretical conjecture.

--
Shaun