Re: Customize xfterm4 for a terminal-bound program in Xfce

[Almut Behrens <almut_behrens@gmx.net>]

On Sat, Dec 17, 2005 at 08:54:53AM -0200, Paulo Marcel Coelho Aragao wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm migrating from KDE to Xfce and I'm not being able to do this: to add a 
> launcher in the Panel for a program running on a terminal, with customized 
> terminal properties. For example, I'd like to launch mutt and mc within a 
> taller terminal window, without menu and scroll bars. If the program doesn't 
> run on a terminal, like xconsole, for example, I just need to add a -geometry 
> argument. I can't figure out how to do something similar to programs that run 
> on a terminal.

This somewhat depends on what options the terminal understands, but the
approach would generally be much the same, i.e. use -geometry for the
terminal that mc/mutt/... is running in.  Size is sometimes specified
in pixels, but usually in characters, e.g. for "mc in rxvt" I have a
command like

  rxvt -geometry 120x50+480+0 -e mc

-geometry applies to the terminal; the -e executes the application in
the terminal.  Feel free to add other options as required -- mc options
would of course go after "-e mc".

For more complex start commands (where you need to set up environment
variables and stuff) I usually put everything in a small wrapper
script, which I then call from the window manager.  The last command
in such a script would typically be an "exec" (which avoids that an
unnecessary shell process is kept running...)

  #!/bin/sh

  # do some setup here, like specific locale changes, lib paths, colors
  # or whatever there's no commandline option for...

  exec rxvt -geometry 120x60+50+20 -e mutt


Cheers,
Almut