Re: Character Map Startup Options?

[Simos Xenitellis <simos74 gmx net>]

O/H John Jason Jordan έγραψε:
> I don't know what version of Gnome I have, but it's whatever is
> installed on my Ubuntu-64 Breezy computer, which has all the latest
> updates. (Planning on upgrading to Dapper after finals in a couple
> weeks.)
>
> The Character Map utility default startup options suck. I am a
> linguistics major and I need to use it a lot. I need it to come up in
> View > By Unicode Block, and with the character displayed at 14 points
> instead of the default 20, and to automatically select my favorite IPA
> font, instead of the default Sans. I've searched everywhere looking for
> command-line options to make this happen, but documentation seems
> completely lacking on this. It is highly annoying to have to
> reconfigure it every time I launch it. Anyone know what the options
> are, or even if there are options, or where there is documentation
> explaining the options? Or if said options do not exist, then is there
> a Character Map replacement that does what I need?
>   
Alright.

gucharmap is developed at
http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/gucharmap/
where you can get the full source code.
You can also notice some small details, even if you are not a 
programmer. For example,
check revision 1.69 at
http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/gucharmap/gucharmap/main.c
which actually increases the default font size.
However, tinkering the source code would be a last resort.

Where are the bug reports/enhacements for gucharmap?
There are at
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/browse.cgi?product=gucharmap
You can file straight away a new bug report or you can check if someone 
else reported a similar issue.
Checking the existing reports, you notice "Report: 140414, remember 
settings",
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=140414
which is actually more or less what you need.

There has been little recent activity in this bug report. One thing you 
can do is make
an addition to the bug report in a polite way, saying that the features 
you describe
above are important to you.

If you do not mind doing some tinkering with the source code,
you can actually modify the code for your needs. I am not on Ubuntu at 
this moment,
so if someone is inclined to test and report back, I'll be very happy.

pre-1. Make sure you have installed the "build-essential" package that 
includes the compiler.
There are chances that some more packages are missing from the steps 
below; normally
the installation procedure will give you hints so that you can install 
one at a go.

1. Get the source package for "gucharmap"

$ apt-get source gucharmap

2. Enter the directory of gucharmap (the directory name may have a version number),

$ cd gucharmap

3. From the link I gave above about the font size, you can see the change detail at
http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/gucharmap/gucharmap/main.c?r1=1.68&r2=1.69
Edit the file gucharmap/main.c
and change back the multiplier to the value of 1.5 (or 1.0).
We are testing if this works; if it does, you can change the font, etc...

4. Build an updated package by running,

$ dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b

This will create a new .deb package for gucharmap.

5. Install the new package,

# dpkg -i gucharmap-xxx.yyy.deb

6. Run gucharmap, check to see if the change actually happened! :)

Hope this helps!!! :)

Simos