GWCI

A GNOME panel applet to make things like web searches and stuff a little easier.

Introduction
Configuring via the preference menu
XML file specs
Example config file
Reporting bugs

Introduction

GWCI is a non-intrusive panel applet written to simplify certain tasks involving web interfaces. I often find myself typing in "http://google.com/search?q=something" or "http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?qv=someword" into my browser window, which is a hassle. GWCI takes my input, glues the appropriate stuff infront of it, and calls a program to execute it. I tried to make it as general as possible, so you could configure it to do a wide variety of tasks. The general interface is handled like this. First the button of the launcher you want to invoke is clicked using the mouse

A small text area appears over the button. Type your query in here (plain text if you want, GWCI will convert the stuff you type into a format that a web browser can handle). Press enter to execute the launcher with that string, or escape to abort the process.

Once you press enter, the program bound to the launcher will execute. I like to have my launchers create a new tab in galeon. What you make yours do is totally up to you.

Configuration in the program

The configuration dialog can be accessed by right clicking on one of the buttons and choosing the Properties item. A dialog box like this should appear

The three things you can do here are add a new button, delete a button, or edit a button. The Ok and Apply buttons will save all the changes to your configuration file. Pressing 'close' will abort any changes since you last pressed apply or loaded the dialog.

Editing is done by selecting the button you want to change from the list on the left, then editing the contents of the text entry boxes on the right. When you are done, click 'ok' or 'apply' and the results will be saved to your hard drive and the applet on your panel will change.

To add a new button, click the 'new' button near the top of the window. A new entry will appear at the bottom of the list on the left. Select it and edit the values. Clicking apply or ok will save your new button and add it to the applet.

Deleting a button requires that you first select which one to delete from the list on the left, then clicking the 'Delete' button towards the top right of the dialog box. Clicking ok or apply will remove the entry from your configuration file.

XML tags used in the configuration file

<GWCI-config>	Toplevel tag.
<Launcher>	A launcher object, symbolizes a button
<Name>	Name of the launcher, used as the label for the button
<Tooltip>	Tooltip for the button...
<Prog>	Program to execute. Entrybox contents will be appended to this

Example configuration file


<?xml version="1.0"?>
 
 <GWCI-config>
 
 <Launcher>
         <Name>FM</Name>
         <Tooltip>FreshMeat Software</Tooltip>
         <Prog>galeon -n http://www.freshmeat.net/search?q=</Prog>
 </Launcher>
 
 <Launcher>
         <Name>Dict</Name>
         <Tooltip>Marriam-Webster Dictionary</Tooltip>
         <Prog>galeon -n http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=</Prog>
 </Launcher>
 
 <Launcher>
         <Name>Google</Name>
         <Tooltip>Google Websearch</Tooltip>
         <Prog>galeon -n http://www.google.com/search?q=</Prog>
 </Launcher>
 
 </GWCI-config>

Reporting bugs and submitting patches

If you find any bugs, follow this procedure to report them.

Make sure you have the most recent version from http://math.smsu.edu/~erik/software.php
Make sure your XML configuration file is valid
Email me at erik@smluc.org and tell me exactly what the problem is. Include useful information like your OS (Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris), Architecture (intel, ppc, g3, sparc), version of GNOME (type "gnome-config --version" at a shell prompt), and attach your XML config file (~/.gnome/gwci.xml).