The quickrun Program 
--------------------

...is a nifty little tool (imho) written for window managers like
fluxbox that let u set keybindings to run programs.

Quickrun pops up a very small window, lets u type in a command to
execute, and then executes that command in the background.  It's much
nicer than starting an xterm or something similar just to type in
"xmms" for instance. Also, it means i don't have to touch the mouse
unnecessarily, which, from a laziness point of view is a huge
plus. quickrun is not a dockable applet, nor is it meant to be.

It now features a history list and filename completion, accessible
by pressing the "Esc" or escape key.

In fluxbox, I edit ~/.fluxbox/keys and add the following line:
  
     Mod4 q :ExecCommand /usr/local/bin/quickrun

So, when I type Win-q, the quickrun window pops up. (The Win key is
the key with the windows symbol on it on Microsoft
keyboards). Depending on the window manager you use, you'll probably
have to set things up differently.

quickrun is known to work with fluxbox, blackbox, enlightenment, kde
and seeing as how it's so simple, probably works with most other
window managers as well. With enlightenment and kde, create a shortcut to
the program. You can set up a keybinding in blackbox using bbkeys or some
such program.

Command Line Options 
--------------------

"quickrun -h" displays the very short list of command line
options.

Synopsis: quickrun [-h] [-p position] [-c count]

-h prints out the help message 
-p determines where quickrun will be
   placed. "none" lets the window manager decide the best
   placement. "mouse" makes quickrun pop up under the mouse cursor and
   "center" or "centre" makes quickrun pop up in the middle of the
   screen. By default, "mouse" is selected.  
-c This is a new feature
   added in quickrun 0.2. It lets you specify the number of entries to
   store in the history list. The default is 10, and the history list is
   stored in ~/.quickrun_history. When the quickrun window pops up, you
   can cycle through the entries in the history list with the "up" and
   "down" arrow keys, or click the little arrow on the right and select
   a command from the drop down list. No more than "count" entries will
   be stored in the list, and duplicate elements will not be stored.
-s Allow only a single instace of quickrun to run
-k keep quickrun open after a command is run. This defeats the purpose
   of this program to an extent, but was a requested feature so what
   the hell?

Bugs 
---- 
- The code can be optimized a bit.  
- The GTK/Glib docs weren't big on the return values of 
  functions so errorchecking can probably be improved. 
- The "configure" script sucks dinosaur balls. It doesnt even try 
  to detect gtk and glib. I'm still trying to get my head around 
  the whole autoconf thing, but so far I haven't made too much progress.  
- I'm sure there's others that I haven't spotted.


And that's that. I'm a big fan of this program, so I hope you enjoy it
too.

later

kodgehopper (kodgehopper@netscape.net)
