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The Linux distillery The joy of X - master the Linux GUI
The Linux distillery The joy of X - master the Linux GUI | The joy of X - master the Linux GUI |
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| The Linux distillery - The Linux user and switcher blog | |
| by David M Williams | |
| Sunday, 12 October 2008 | |
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Page 3 of 5 Most X programs will allow you to pass in command-line parameters to either get extra functionality or to change the default functionality.Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
If you were working heavily with JavaScript and constantly starting up Firefox for testing you might want that console to always be open and save yourself a couple of mouse clicks. You can do this by starting a terminal window and entering the command firefox -jsconsole & The browser starts, with the console already open. Of course, opening a terminal window and typing a command every time you want to launch Firefox is more effort, but you will appreciate you can easily make a desktop shortcut to perform that command repeatedly. The point is simply that the programs which launch from your toolbar and menus are being invoked by calling them just as you would do from the command line. You can extend their functionality by passing extra parameters. If these parameters are useful and reflect the way you always want the program to start up then you can modify the menu configuration files to always use these parameters. One thing is worth mentioning: often Windows aficionados will lambast Linux because it seems to have an endless amount of command line instructions and parameters. Yet, really this is a testament to the power in Linux that so much is configurable. Actually, Windows programs work in the same way, just it’s less known and less used both by developers and users. For instance, a Start menu shortcut to Microsoft Word is also simply calling a program. This shortcut can be modified to add command-line parameters if the program supports them. You can view a list of command-line options for Microsoft Word here. If any of these were of such usefulness that you wished Word would always start with that option enabled you can modify the shortcut in the Start menu to include the parameter. So it is with Linux. Here’s another example, which is a bit goofy but still practical. CONTINUED |
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