OpenConfigBox - Project report
Brendan Johan Lee (brendajl)
October 31, 2008
Abstract
Report on used time. Short description of what got done, and what didn’t get
done. Short description of files and directory structure. Short description of the
vmware image.
Features implemented
• If config files don’t exist on start up, make them after asking user for
permission.
• Main GUI.
• GUI for keyboard shortcuts (including actions and settings)
• GUI for mouse bindings
• GUI for start up settings
• GUI for app settings
• methods for reading and parsing rc.xml and autoload.sh
• methods for extracting keyboard shortcuts (including actions and settings), app settings, mouse bindings and start up settings
• methods for saving, editing, and creating keyboard shortcuts (including
actions and settings)
• methods for saving, editing, and creating app settings
• methods for saving, editing, and creating mouse bindings (not included in
original spec)
• methods for saving, editing, and creating start up settings
• automatic backup system for rc.xml and autoload.sh (backups for each
save created in .backup sub folder in OpenBox config folder
• methods for handling errors while saving, reading, etc.
• GUI front end methods for deleting, creating, and editing keyboard shortcuts (including actions and settings)
• GUI front end methods for deleting, creating, and editing start up commands and comments
• Method for telling OpenBox to reload config file (rc.xml)
• save methods for both rc.xml and autoload.sh
• method for asking user if he wants to save files when quiting, if unsaved
changes have been made
Features not (yet) implemented
• GUI front end methods for deleting, creating and editing mouse bindings
(not included in original spec)
• GUI front end methods for deleting, creating and editing application settings
1
• Support for settings with sub settings in keyboard shortcut actions. This
is supported in the back end, but not the GUI front end. Should be simple
enough, but hasn’t been implemented yet, since I already have gone way
over the 64 hours. Skipped because it’s a time consuming feature to
implement, and only a couple of settings are allowed to have sub settings.
• The rest of the planed feature (that I said I didn’t realistically think
was possible to complete in the allotted time. I have however completed
more features that I had though was possible while writing the project
description.
• See also todo-index.html in docs/code for minors
Description of files and directory structure
Directories
project root
docs
docs/www
docs/code
OpenBoxConfig
OpenBoxConfig/default-files
OpenBoxConfig/ui
OpenBoxConfig/ui/gfx
contains the main file
contains the documentation
contains the web page (also available at
http://folk.uio.no/brendajl/)
code documentation in html format
contains the modules representing rc.xml and
autoload.sh
contains default rc.xml and autoload.sh files
for systems without them
contains all of the different GUI modules
contains the artwork
2
Files
OpenConfigBox.py
generate-docs.sh
OpenConfigBox/Autostart.py
OpenConfigBox/OpenBoxConfig.py
OpenConfigBox/ui/ActionsGUI.py
OpenConfigBox/ui/MainWindow.py
OpenConfigBox/ui/SettingsGUI.py
OpenConfigBox/ui/Ui openconfigbox.py
main project file
shell script to generate the code
docs (just to save myself some
time)
classes and methods representing
the autostart.sh
classes and methods representing
the rc.xml
classes and methods for GUI for
actions
class for the main GUI. Subclasses Ui openconfigbox.py
classes and methods for GUI for
settings
GUI class generated from the
openconfigbox.ui
XML
file.
Auto-generated, except for a
fix for the artwork. All of the
artwork had to be inserted
manually due to a bug in the
generator.
vmware image
Boot the image. Log on with user-name/password test/test. Should automatically start an OpenBox standalone session. Right-click on the desktop. Choose
terminal emulator form the menu. Issue the command ’openconfigbox’. The
application starts and since there aren’t any default config files installed it asks
if you wish to create them. Enjoy.
PS! There is a bug on the system on the vmware image that isn’t present
on my own computer. For some reason it is impossible to deselect a list, so you
can only add a top level keyboard shortcut right after starting the program, and
before selecting anything in the list.
3
Time usage
22.09
4
22.10
17:15-20:30
3.25
23.10
12:00-16:00
4
23.10
16:30-21:00
4.5
24.10
09:00-15:30
6.5
24.10
16:30-18:00
1.5
25.10
12:30-17:00
4.5
25.10
21:00-04:00
7
26.10
15:00-21:00
6
27.10
09:30-11:30
2
27.10
16:30-22:00
5.5
Looked into XML-solutions for the project. Decided
to use minidom. Looked into the best solution for
integrating with Qt4. Decided to use Eric Ide to help
generate the GUI skeleton. The rest of the project
will be done in Emacs.
Started making classes representing the keyboard
shortcuts and parsing XML-file.
Started making the XML-parser from scratch in a
much better way
The new parser for keyboard shortcuts was completed. Stated adding functions, and spent lots of
time trying to get the XML-output to be formated
correctly. Finally found out that the problem was
the prettyprint method of minidom. Switches to the
prettyprint method xml.dom.ext, and everything was
fine. the ext module is however not included in newer
python distros, so I had to do a little “hack” to get it
included. The keyboard shortcut module was almost
completed.
The functions for writing to file, writing to backup
file, reading from file for the autostart module got
completed. Parsing autostart file is completed. Writing to autostart file is almost completed. Class representing the autostart commands is almost complete
Fixed some bugs. Methods for parsing autostart
file is complete. Autostart module nearly complete.
Started reading a tutorial on creating the GUI in a
smart way
Created the application class. Created the position
class. Updated the RC class to handle the applications part of the config. Started making classes
representing mouse bindings. (Not included in the
project description). MouseContext class finished.
MouseBind class finsihed. Updated the RC class to
handle mouse stuff. Re-wrote all of the classes to include forefather so that we can have safe prettyprint
indenting with multiple instance running. (Prettyprint for debugging)
Created a subversion for the project. Started making
the GUI.
Continued with the GUI. Created methods for grabbing keyboard shortcuts. Spent a lot of time on
this since when grabbing shortcuts the application
grabbed the keyboard focus, so any time there was
an error in the code, the system lost keyboard control completely and needed X restarted. System for
adding keyboard shortcuts complete. Started making system for updating keyboard shortcuts. Added
methods for adding keyboard shortcuts at top level.
Started the
4 long, dull job of making it possible to
add actions to shortcuts
Continued with the adding shortcut functions. This
function is going to take much longer than planed.
28.10
13:30-21:00
8.5
29.10
13:10-22:30
9.5
30.10
14:30-10:00
19.5
Continued with adding shortcut function. Finished
with add actions method except for sub settings of
settings. (Skipped for now, because it will take a
lot of time and effort, and is only used for a couple
of settings). Started the change settings functions.
Realized that the whole settings method had to be
changed to be able to do this in a smart way.
Continued changing the methods for settings.
(Seems like I did some bad planning here. Wasted
a lot of time on this rewriting. I probably should
have done this in a much smarter way, like saving the
settings in a XML-file and writing a parser instead.)
Fixed some bugs. Started doing small leftover bits of
the GUI programing (save methods, error messages,
etc.)
Finished the saving GUI methods. Tested that all
changes got saved. Created a system for asking user
if he wants to save changes if unsaved changes when
quiting. Fixed the “main-menu buttons”. Added
SettingGUIStringWithSelect, a subtype of SettingGUIString that has a file selection dialog. Added
the help messages to the single setting change GUI
(the same messages that are shown when “mousing over” a setting in add action. Started making
GUI for start-up settings. Made Command a subclass of WListWidgetItem. Finished the GUI for
start-up commands. Finished GUI for saving all files
and error-messages. Tested that changes to start-up
commands got saved. Added the main list to mousebindings and app settings (I don’t have time to make
routines for adding, editing, etc.) Made a sensible
directory structure. Finished the source-code documentation. Created the web-page. Grabbed screen
shots. Created vmware image. Wrote this document.
86.25
Conclusion
I spent a fair amount of extra time compared to the estimated 64 hours. 22.25
hours more to be exact. But I also managed to complete a whole lot more than
expected. It’s amazing how quick one can implement things in python, even
compared to Perl. 3720 lines of code including comments in 86 hours is very
close to a personal record.
The project will continue. And I should be able to release a first version
with 2-3 more weeks of work. (So now I know what I’m going to do during my
Christmas vacation).
The only regrets I have is that I didn’t have an extra day for documentation.
I would have liked to document my code a little bit better.
5