[dev] Re: [dmenu] [patch] Display a multi-line text message before (or instead of) the prompt (was: xmessage replacement similar to dmenu)

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 21:11, Ciprian Dorin, Craciun
<ciprian.craciun_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
>    Hello all!
>
>    I didn't thought it was so easy to extend `dmenu` but it seems it
> is. So will just to fill in the context of this patch: yesterday I've
> asked on the mailing list if there is a `dmenu` like replacement for
> xmessage. (See the archive at:
> http://lists.suckless.org/dev/1011/6486.html ) And I've received a lot
> of feedback for which I thank to the posters.
>
>    Unfortunately none of the tools did what I needed... I figured out
> that I actually need `dmenu` to be able to display some text message
> (explaining the user what the input was for -- like a help message),
> and just behave normally by letting the user select an item from the
> list. (I think of it as a `dialog` replacement.) (I want to use it to
> allow the user to confirm the actions of a background daemon, and the
> message is longer than a single line.)
>
>    Thus I've made the following modifications to `dmenu`, which I
> hereby place in the public domain (in the hope that it is going to be
> accepted by the `dmenu` team and incorporated in the tool), and for
> which I want to receive comments.
>
>    In summary, I've added two new arguments:
>    * `-of message-file` which gives the path to a file that contains
> the message to be displayed; (it can be a pipe, nomal file, etc.);
>    * `-ol message-lines` which should limit the number of lines displayed;
>
>    I've also refactored the `readstdin` function which I've made to
> delegate work to the `readfile` function, because I reuse it inside
> the newly created function `readmsgfile`. (I've been careful to keep
> inside `readstdin` the `inputw` computation and thus it is not
> influenced by the `readmsgfile` function.)
>
>    Then I've added three new global variables: `msgfile`, `msglines`,
> and `msgitems`, plus I've updated the `drawmenu` function (just before
> the prompt) to include the drawing of the message lines.
>
>    (I've also added a sanity check to the `main` function to check if
> the number of lines isn't negative, or if `-ol` was specified but not
> `-of`.)
>
>    So any thoughts?
>    Ciprian.

    I've seen in the archives that Dieterbe had created a `dmenu` Git
repository mirror on GitHub, and as I'm more inclined towards Git than
to Hg, I've cloned his repository and created a branch for the
before-mentioned patch (see below the branch and the two patches that
do what I've described previously):
        https://github.com/cipriancraciun/dmenu/commits/patches%2Fmultiline-message
        https://github.com/cipriancraciun/dmenu/commit/c6c42eb025f0b49ae39f2ebcef5cb18ee1df7ac9
        https://github.com/cipriancraciun/dmenu/commit/e7bad30b8879568f47b77c5cf30b3178031d1092

    So thanks Dieterbe for the repository clone.

    Ciprian.
Received on Wed Nov 24 2010 - 22:00:02 CET