Computer Science
GPM-ROOT(1) GPM-ROOT(1)
NAME
gpm-root - a default handler for gpm, used to draw menus
on the root window
SYNOPSIS
gpm-root [ options ]
DESCRIPTION
The program `gpm-root' is designed to handle Control-Mouse
events to draw menus on the background of the current tty.
The actual menus are described by a configuration file in
the user's home directory.
Please note that `gpm-root' needs to run with Linux 1.1.73
or newer, because previous kernels lack some screen han-
dling capabilities required by the program.
The program uses the files `/dev/vcs*' to draw to the con-
sole screen. These are available only from kernel 1.1.81
onward. If you miss those device nodes, you should create
them using `create_vcs' in the distribution directory. The
tool won't run with kernels older than 1.1.81, because
they lacked a full screen dump/restore capability.
Available command line options are the following:
-m number
Choose the modifier to use (by default: `control').
The modifier can be provided either as a number or
as a symbolic string. Allowed strings are `shift',
`anyAlt', `leftAlt', `rightAlt', `control'.
-u Deny using user-specific configuration files. With
this option on, only `/etc/gpm-root.conf' will be
used as a source of configuration information. This
option is intended for those system administrators
who fear security could be broken by this daemon.
Things should be sufficiently secure, but if you
find a hole please tell me about it.
-D Do not automatically enter background operation
when started, and log messages to the standard
error stream, not the syslog mechanism. This is
useful for debugging; in previous releases it was
done with a compile-time option.
-V verbosity increment
Raise the maximum level of messages that will be
logged. Thus a positive argument has the effect of
making the program more verbose. One can also give
a negative argument to hush the program; however,
note that due to getopt(3) rules a negative argu-
ment must follow the option with no space betwixt
(that is, `-V-1' but not `-V -1'). The argument is
optional and its default value is 1.
Each time a menu is drawn, the configuration file is
reparsed if it has changed. This allows modification of
personal setup without reinvoking the daemon.
The actual configuration file is better introduced by
looking at your `/etc/gpm-root.conf'.
The syntax for the file won't be described here, being it
quite apparent from the example above. Blanks and newlines
are unused in parsing the file, and the layout of the file
is free. Comments are allowed in the file: any hash mark
(`#') found at the beginning of the line or after white
space makes the parser discard anything up to the next
line. To insert quotes (`"') in strings precede them with
a backslash.
Note that recursive menus are allowed, to any level of
recursion.
Keywords belong to three groups: the button keyword, the
cfg keywords and the action keywords. They are all
described in the table below:
button number menu
The `button' keyword is used to introduce a menu.
It is followed by the number of the relevant button
(1=left, 2=middle, 3=right), an open brace, a menu
and a closed brace. A menu is made up of cfg
statements, followed by action statements. Cfg
statements can come in any order, while the order
of action statements tells the actual order in
which actions will appear on the screen, top to
bottom.
The following statements belong to the cfg set.
name string
If the `name' keyword is present, the specified
string will be used as the name for the current
menu.
background color
This statements is used to specify the background
color to be used in the current menu. The color can
be specified with one of the eight canonical
strings `black', `red', `cyan' etc. The background
defaults to black.
foreground color
This statements is used to specify the foreground
color for menu items. Its value defaults to
`white'. An optional `bright' keyword can appear
before the actual color.
border color
`border' is used to specify the border color for
the menu. Its value defaults to `white'. An
optional `bright' keyword can appear before the
actual color.
head color
`head' is used to specify the foreground color for
the title of the menu. Its value defaults to
`white'. An optional `bright' keyword can appear
before the actual color.
The following statements belong to the action set.
string f.fgcmd cmdstring
When the mouse button is released above the corre-
sponding menu item, the cmdstring is pasted in the
keyboard queue of the current console. This is not
yet implemented.
string f.bgcmd cmdstring
When the mouse button is released above the corre-
sponding menu item, a shell (`/bin/sh') is forked
to execute the specified command, with `stdin' con-
nected to `/dev/null', and `stdout', `stderr' con-
nected to the active console.
string f.jptty ttynumber
When the mouse button is released above the corre-
sponding menu item, the console is switched to the
one specified. The ttynumber must be specified as a
string. Any tty can be reached this way, even those
which are not accessible via the keyboard.
string f.mktty ttynumber
When the mouse button is released above the corre-
sponding menu item, an unused console is selected,
and `/sbin/agetty' is executed in it. The current
console is switched to the newly opened console. I
use this command to save kernel memory by opening a
single console through `/etc/inittab' and request-
ing the others only when i need to login.
string Whole-menu
A menu can directly follow the label string. When
the mouse pointer leaves the menu frame at the
level of string, a second menu is posted on screen.
string f.lock
When the mouse button is released above the corre-
sponding menu item, the keyboard and the screen are
locked, and only the locking user or the superuser
can unlock them. This is not yet implemented.
string f.load
The current loadavg when the menu is posted is con-
catenated to string to build the actual message
displayed on screen. Nothing happens at button
release.
string f.free
The free memory and swap when the menu is posted is
concatenated to string to build the actual message
displayed on screen. Nothing happens at button
release.
string f.time
The current time is formatted with strftime(3),
according to string. The resulting string is the
actual message displayed on screen. Nothing happens
at button release.
string f.pipe cmdline
When the mouse pointer leaves the menu frame at the
level of string, a message box is posted on screen
showing the last ten lines of the output of cmd-
line. cmdline is executed by `/bin/sh'. This is not
yet implemented.
string f.nop
This does nothing, it only displays string on the
menu.
The `HOME', `LOGNAME' and `USER' environment variables are
setup to the values for the invoking user before spawning
an external process (`f.bgcmd', `f.pipe'). The current
directory is always `/'.
BUGS
Known bugs have been fixed. In particular, if you invoke
`gpm-root' right after `gpm', it will delay a few seconds
before trying to connect to the daemon.
AUTHOR
Alessandro Rubini <rubini@linux.it>
FILES
/dev/gpmctl The socket used to connect to gpm.
/etc/gpm-root.conf The default configuration file.
$(HOME)/.gpm-root The user configuration file.
/dev/vcs* Virtual Console Screens
SEE ALSO
gpm(8)
The info file about `gpm', which gives more complete
information and explains how to write a gpm client.
February 1995 1
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