NAME
xpostit - X window system Post-it® notes
SYNOPSIS
xpostit [ -toolkitoptions ... ] [ -options ... ]
DESCRIPTION
Xpostit provides a mechanism for manipulating on-screen Post-it® notes.
All six sizes of Post-it notes may be displayed, edited, and saved to
disk files. In addition, any on-screen note may be resized to any
arbitrary size either when it is created or at a later time.
When xpostit is first invoked, it creates a small window with a plaid
background. This is the control window for xpostit. Additionally, if
any notes were stored in the save directory (see below), these will be
placed on the screen at their last locations and in their last
respective states (normal, iconic, or hidden). Each Post-it note, when
created, makes another window on the screen. Xpostit is controlled
using the mouse buttons and a menu. The Post-it notes are controlled
using buttons (Command widgets).
OPTIONS
Xpostit accepts all of the standard X Toolkit command line options
along with the additional options listed below.
-bs number
Specifies the size of the character buffer in which to save
each Post-it note. A note may not contain more than this
number of characters, including newlines. The default is 1024.
-dir path
Specifies the path name of the directory in which to store
saved Post-it notes. If path begins with a ‘/’ it is taken as-
is; if it does not begin with a ‘/’, the path is taken relative
to the home directory. The named directory must already exist
if notes are to be saved in it. The default is .postitnotes.
-sb Enables scroll-bars. If specified, a scroll bar will be
attached to each Post-it note.
-sv Enables save-on-exit. When specified, this option tells
xpostit to save all Post-it notes to disk files when exiting.
If not specified, notes will only be saved to disk files when
saved manually by the user.
WIDGET USAGE
Xpostit uses several widget types to construct the objects it uses.
The control window is a Plaid widget called ‘‘Plaid’’.
The menu is a pop-up shell called ‘‘Menu’’ containing a SimpleMenu
widget.
Each Post-it note is a pop-up shell called ‘‘PostItNote’’, containing a
Form widget called ‘‘Note’’ which contains a Text widget called
‘‘NoteText’’, and four Command widgets called ‘‘Save’’, ‘‘Erase’’,
‘‘Destroy’’, and ‘‘Title’’.
The confirmation box is a pop-up shell called ‘‘Confirm’’, containing a
Form widget called ‘‘Buttons’’ which contains two Command widgets
called ‘‘Confirm’’ and ‘‘Cancel’’. The title-change box is a pop-up
shell called ‘‘Title’’, containing a Dialog widget called ‘‘Dialog’’.
RESOURCES
Xpostit understands all of the core X Toolkit resource names and
classes as well as those listed below, which are all of class XPostit.
.bufSize
Specifies the size of the character buffer used to store a
Post-it note. The default is 1024.
.noteDir
Specifies the path name of the directory in which to store
saved notes. The default is .postitnotes.
.saveNotes
Controls the state of the save-on-exit option. The default is
false.
.scrollBar
Controls placing scroll bars on Post-it notes. The default is
false.
ACTIONS
It is possible to rebind the mouse buttons in the Plaid widget to
perform different functions by changing the widget’s translations. The
raise() action, normally bound to the left mouse button, raises all
notes. The lower() action, normally bound to the middle mouse button,
lowers all notes. The show() action, normally bound to the middle
mouse button with the CTRL key, maps all unmapped notes. The hide()
action, normally bound to the left mouse button with the CTRL key,
unmaps all visible, non-iconic notes on the screen. The tearoff()
action, normally invoked by dragging the left button off the Plaid
widget, creates a new note. The tearoff action has an optional
paramter indicating the size of the note to be created, e.g.,
tearoff(3x5) to create a 3-inch by 5-inch note. If no paramter is
given, a 1.5-inch by 2-inch note will be created. The menu raising
function, normally bound to the right mouse button, is performed by
calling the actions XawPositionSimpleMenu(Menu) and MenuPopup(Menu).
The quit() action, bound to the ‘‘q’’ and ‘‘Q’’ keys, is equivalent to
selecting ‘‘Exit’’ from the menu.
THE CONTROL WINDOW
Xpostit allows several operations to be performed from its control
window. Clicking the left mouse button in the control window will
cause all Post-it notes on the screen to be raised to the top.
Clicking the middle mouse button in the control window will cause all
Post-it notes on the screen to be lowered to the bottom. Clicking the
left mouse button in the control window while holding down the CTRL key
will cause all currently hidden notes to be mapped (shown). Clicking
the middle mouse button in the control window while holding down the
CTRL key will cause all notes on the screen which are not iconified to
be unmapped (hidden). Pressing the left mouse button in the control
window and dragging it outside the window will create a new note.
Pressing the right mouse button in the control window raises the
xpostit menu. Pressing the ‘‘q’’ or ‘‘Q’’ keys in the control window
will exit the program.
THE MENU
The xpostit menu provides the following selections:
Create 1.5x2 Note
Create a new Post-it note, 1.5 inches tall by 2 inches wide.
The window will normally need to be positioned using the window
manager.
Create 2x3 Note
Create a new Post-it note, 2 inches tall by 3 inches wide.
Create 3x3 Note
Create a new Post-it note, 3 inches square.
Create 3x4 Note
Create a new Post-it note, 3 inches tall by 4 inches wide.
Create 3x5 Note
Create a new Post-it note, 3 inches tall by 5 inches wide.
Create 4x6 Note
Create a new Post-it note, 4 inches tall by 6 inches wide.
Raise All Notes
Raise all Post-it notes to the top. This is equivalent to
pressing the left mouse button in the control window.
Lower All Notes
Lower all Post-it notes to the bottom. This is equivalent to
pressing the middle mouse button in the control window.
Hide All Notes
Unmap all Post-it notes, making them disappear from the screen.
This is equivalent to pressing the middle mouse button in the
control window while holding down the CTRL key. Note: to hide
a single note, you may use the window manager to send a
WM_DELETE_WINDOW message to the note window. Under twm , this
is done with the f.delete function.
Show All Notes
Map all Post-it notes, making them reappear if they were
hidden. This is equivalent to pressing the left mouse button
in the control window while holding down the CTRL key.
Save All Notes
Save all Post-it notes to disk files in the save directory.
Exit Exit xpostit . If the -sv command line option was given, or
the saveNotes resource is true , all Post-it notes will be
saved to disk first.
To select an item from the menu, drag the mouse cursor to that item and
release the mouse button.
THE POST-IT NOTE
Each Post-it note is made up of five parts (plus an optional scroll
bar): a text window where the text of the note is stored, and four
buttons labeled ‘‘Save’’, ‘‘Erase’’, ‘‘Destroy’’, and ‘‘Title’’.
The title of a Post-it note, which will be displayed by most window
managers in both a title bar and the icon name area, is by default the
string ‘‘PostItNote #’’ followed by a small integer, the number of the
note. The procedure for changing this title to something more
meaningful is described below.
To enter text into a Post-it note, simply move the mouse cursor into
the text window and start typing. Since the text window is actually a
Text widget, all the Text widget translations are accepted.
Essentially, this means you can use most of the EMACS control keys in
the window. Additionally, the various mouse buttons used for
manipulating the selections and cut buffer are understood.
After entering text in the Post-it note, you may wish to save the note
in a disk file. This way, if the machine goes down, or if you exit
xpostit, the Post-it note can be restored when you restart xpostit.
(Post-it notes are also saved automatically (if saveNotes is true) if a
SIGHUP, SIGINT, SIGTERM, or SIGQUIT signal is received.) To save the
note to a disk file, move the mouse cursor to the button labeled
‘‘Save’’ and press the left mouse button, or use the ‘‘Alt-s’’ keyboard
sequence. The note will be saved as the file ‘‘noten’’ in your save
directory, where n is some sequence number. NOTE: it is important to
remember that until you have pressed the ‘‘Save’’ button, the data
stored in the Post-it note is not saved on disk and can be lost if the
system goes down or xpostit exits.
To erase the entire contents of the text window, you can press the left
mouse button in the ‘‘Erase’’ button. This will bring up a
confirmation window, which has two buttons labeled ‘‘Confirm’’ and
‘‘Cancel’’. If you press the ‘‘Confirm’’ button, the text will be
erased. If you press the ‘‘Cancel’’ button, the operation is canceled,
and nothing will happen. NOTE: erasing the text in the window does not
affect any contents of the note you have saved on disk unless you press
the ‘‘Save’’ button again.
To destroy a Post-it note, getting rid of its window on the screen and
the disk file it is saved in, move the mouse cursor to the ‘‘Destroy’’
button and press the left mouse button. This will bring up a
confirmation window as described above. If you confirm the operation,
the Post-it note will disappear from the screen and the disk file it
was saved in will be deleted.
To change the title of a Post-it note, both in any title bar on the
window as well as in the icon for the note, move the mouse cursor to
the ‘‘Title’’ button and press the left mouse button, or enter the
‘‘Alt-t’’ keyboard sequence. This will bring up a dialog box with the
current title in it. Change or modify the title, and press the
‘‘Okay’’ button with the mouse to change the title, or press the
‘‘Cancel’’ button to discard the change. You can also simply press the
‘‘Return’’ key to change the title, or the ‘‘Escape’’ key to cancel the
change.
SEE ALSO
X(1)
BUGS
The sizes of the Post-it notes are only as accurate as the display
dimension and resolution returned by the server. On the Sun server and
possibly others, this means they aren’t all that accurate.
When the title of a Post-it note is changed, some window managers
(notably twm ) will not make the change in the icon name, since they
only look up this data when a window is mapped. This can be ‘‘fixed’’
by unmapping all notes and mapping them again.
Without a color display for canary yellow notes and red plaid, the
aesthetic value of xpostit cannot be fully appreciated.
AUTHOR
David A. Curry, Purdue University
‘‘Post-it’’ and the plaid design are registered trademarks of 3M.