Gnome’s Run Command Dialog

Since I switched to Ubuntu, I missed a Run Command dialog ala Windows. Somehow I think it lots neater than the “classic” terminal window. Actually the dialog is provided in Add To Panel dialog. But I don’t know why it can’t be placed on Gnome’s main menu. It kinds of a weird “policy” of Gnome, IMO. So, I started to google (yes, now google can be used as verb) about this issue. I found many people also miss the dialog.

Then, google took me to this blog. The blog owner has a small program to pop up Gnome’s Run Command dialog. As it’s a program, we are able to put its shortcut in the main menu. That’s just exactly what I need.

Happily I downloaded the source, compile it with gcc, and run it. As expected, it works. Still, there’s a but, a big but to me actually. The program is able to show the Run Command dialog but the window isn’t brought to the foreground. It’s very annoying! Logically, we expect a window would pop up in front of us each time we click on an application’s icon.

I uttered this problem on the blog. The blog owner suggested me to use an additional tool name Devilspie to manage Gnome’s window extra behavior. Personally, I don’t like this solution. I believe Gnome and X11 is a mature window manager with relatively complete features. Inability to bring up a window to the front sounds impossible.

So, I started to learn a little bit about x window and Gnome desktop programming. After about an hour googling around, fortunately, I found the solutions. There’s a tiny mistake on the program and it’s pretty easy to fix. But, instead of fix the c written program, I chose to re-write it in pascal using my favorite pascal compiler: FreePascal. :D

And here’s the pascal code…

1:
 
2:
 
3:
4:
 
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
11:
12:
13:
14:
 
15:
16:
 
17:
 
18:
19:
20:
21:
 
22:
23:
24:
25:
26:
27:
28:
29:
 
30:
31:
32:
 
33:
34:
35:
36:
37:
38:
39:
 
40:
41:
 
42:
43:
 

program gnome_run;

{$MODE OBJFPC}{$H+}

uses
  x, xlib, SysUtils;

function FindAtom(ADisplay: PXDisplay; const AtomName: string): TAtom;
var
  FAtom: TAtom;
begin
  FAtom := XInternAtom(ADisplay, PChar(AtomName), false);
  if FAtom = None then
  begin
    Writeln('Error: can''t find requested atom.');
    Halt;
  end;

  Result := FAtom;
end;

(******** main program ********)

var
  Display: PXDisplay;
  GnomePanelAtom, RunDialogAtom: TAtom;
  ClientEvent: TXClientMessageEvent;

begin
  // open x display
  Display := XOpenDisplay(nil);
  if Display = nil then
  begin
    Writeln('Error: can''t open X display.');
    Halt;
  end;

  // find panel atom
  GnomePanelAtom := FindAtom(Display, '_GNOME_PANEL_ACTION');
  RunDialogAtom := FindAtom(Display, '_GNOME_PANEL_ACTION_RUN_DIALOG');

  // set event properties
  ClientEvent._Type := ClientMessage;
  ClientEvent.Window := DefaultRootWindow(Display);
  ClientEvent.Message_Type := GnomePanelAtom;
  ClientEvent.Format := 32;
  ClientEvent.Data.l[0] := RunDialogAtom;
  ClientEvent.Data.l[1] := Round(Frac(Now)*1000);

  // run panel
  XSendEvent(Display, ClientEvent.Window, false, 
             StructureNotifyMask, PXEvent(@ClientEvent));
  XCloseDisplay(Display);
end.

Save it as gnome_run.pas. Compile it using fpc gnome_run.pas -CX -OG2 -XXs. Run it. Viola, the Run Command dialog popped up in front of me. :)

run_command.png

 ยป Program shortcut on Ubuntu’s main menu.

Ok, I think it’s enough playing around with xlib and Gnome. It’s time to back to my real job. :D

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 11:48 am and is filed under Object Pascal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to “Gnome’s Run Command Dialog”

  1. Meti Says:
    November 30, 2007 at 11:27 pm | Reply

    poor gnome….

    i just click “cassandra” – “run program” in my MintXFCE kekekekeke…….

  2. mica Says:
    December 4, 2007 at 1:14 am | Reply

    Thanks KDE for ALT-F2 Magic

    http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/658

  3. Bee Says:
    December 4, 2007 at 2:11 am | Reply

    Ubuntu also has the Alt+F2 keyboard shortcut to launch this dialog. But that’s not the point. I want to launch the dialog by point-and-click on a (main-)menu item, using mouse, not using keyboard and the cryptic shortcut. :D

  4. mica Says:
    December 5, 2007 at 12:26 am | Reply

    Ahh
    I see.The old (Gnome) problem of removing (useful) options ;)

  5. bee Says:
    December 5, 2007 at 12:41 am | Reply

    That’s why I said it was a “weird” policy of Gnome. They remove Run Command dialog but still provide console/terminal. :D

  6. steve Says:
    April 24, 2009 at 10:46 am | Reply

    fuck pascal, can you post the C source code please?

  7. bee Says:
    April 24, 2009 at 11:39 am | Reply

    @steve:
    aha, “nice” word! why don’t you help yourself first then! :P

  8. Andrew Says:
    August 6, 2009 at 3:09 pm | Reply

    Please indicate what you changed in the code. The only thing I could find was the client event data time information.

  9. Andrew Says:
    August 6, 2009 at 3:13 pm | Reply

    For those wanting the fix for C, add the following header

    #include

    Then change the second event data assigment to

    event.data.l[1] = (Time)time(NULL);

    HTH

Leave a Reply