XPOSTIT(1) XPOSTIT(1)
NAME
xpostit - X window system Post-it(r) notes
SYNOPSIS
xpostit [ -toolkitoptions ... ] [ -options ... ]
DESCRIPTION
Xpostit provides a mechanism for manipulating on-screen
Post-it(r) 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.
All notes can be "hidden" - the notes are still available
but not shown on the screen until requested by the user.
Hidden notes will stay hidden when xpostit is exited and
then restarted (as long as the user saves all notes before
exiting).
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, unless they were hidden
when saved (see below). 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 by using a drop down menu.
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.
-nw pixels
Allows the user to specify the width, in pixels,
for a single character of text. This is dependent
on the font being used, but the Athena Widget set
and the Xt Intrinsics apparently doesn't allow a
program to determine this value at run time. This
value is used to determine the width of the Name
dialog box, which is used to provide a title for a
given note. The default value for this option is
10 pixels.
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-ao offset
The offset is specified in pixels and is used to
determine the X and Y offsets from an anchor note
for a note being cascaded. The default value is
15 pixels.
-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. If the named directory does not
already exist, then xpostit attempts to create it.
The default is .postitnotes.
-tmpdir path
Specifies the path name of the directory to use
for temporary files. By default ``/tmp'' is used.
-printcmd cmd
This must be a quoted command string that can be
used as the format string to sprintf(). It must
include "%s" for the temporary file name used when
printing a note. The buffer created with
sprintf(), this option value, and the temporary
file name is passed to the system() call to print
the note. By default, the printcmd value is ``lpr
%s''.
-calendarcmd cmd
This is the command used to produce a calendar for
the current month. On most Unix systems this will
be ``cal'', which is the default. The output from
this command is redirected to a temporary file and
then inserted into a note at the current cursor
location.
-emailcmd cmd
The "Email" option from the notes menu will pop up
a window prompting for an email address. The
-emailcmd command line option or .emailCmd
resource can be set to your systems mailer com-
mand. The mailer must accept the text of the mail
via standard input (actually as a pipe from "cat
tmpfile"). "cmd" must be a Unix style command in
printf() format. See the section on Configuring
the mailer.
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-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 can
be saved to disk files manually by the user or via
the autosave feature. It is useful to specify
this option since hidden notes cannot be saved
unless either the "Save All Notes" option is used
or the autosave option has not been disabled. Its
also to use this option since its not guaranteed
that the autosave feature will have saved all
notes since their last updates when xpostit exits.
-c Enables compatibility mode. Initially this is for
notes created using the %! magic cookie. In ver-
sion 2.2 this was changed to %%!! because the
original cookie was the one being used for
Postscript files. In the future this mode may
cover other items that are not compatible between
versions/releases.
-ns Disables the autosave feature.
-na Disables alarms.
-interval
Sets the timeout interval (in minutes) for when
the autosave timeout should expire. When this
timer expires, all notes are automatically saved
to disk. The default value is 10 minutes.
-homedir path
Specifies the base directory from which the File
Selection Window will look for files and directo-
ries. If not specified, and the associated
resource .homeDir is not set then the environment
variable HOME is used. If this is not set either,
then the File Selection Window uses the root (/)
directory as its start point.
-version
Displays the current version of xpostit.
-help Displays a usage message.
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WIDGET USAGE
Xpostit uses several widget types to construct the objects
it uses.
The control window is a Plaid widget called ``Plaid''.
This is a widget designed by David A. Curry, the original
author of xpostit.
The menu is a pop-up shell called ``Menu'' containing a
SimpleMenu widget. From this menu the hidden notes menu
can be popped up. The hidden notes menu is also a Simple-
Menu 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 a MenuButton widget
called "Options". The Options button, when selected, pops
up a drop-down menu called "OptionsMenu" (see the Xpos-
tit.ad application defaults file). Inside of this menu
are five menu items called ``Save'', ``Erase'',
``Destroy'', ``Hide'', and ``Name''.
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''.
There is also dialog box which pops up when the Name menu
item is selected which is 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.
.nameWidth
See the -nw command line option. The default
value for this resource is 10.
.noteDir
Specifies the path name of the directory in which
to store saved notes. The default is .postit-
notes.
.tmpDir Specifies the path name of the directory to use
for temporary files. By default ``/tmp'' is used.
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.printCmd
This must be a quoted command string that can be
used as the format string to sprintf(). It must
include "%s" for the temporary file name used when
printing a note. The buffer created with
sprintf(), this option value, and the temporary
file name is passed to the system() call to print
the note. By default, the printcmd value is ``lpr
%s''.
.calendarCmd
This is the command used to produce a calendar for
the current month. On most Unix systems this will
be ``cal'', which is the default. The output from
this command is redirected to a temporary file and
then inserted into a note at the current cursor
location.
.emailCmd
The "Email" option from the notes menu will pop up
a window prompting for an email address. The
-emailcmd command line option or .emailCmd
resource can be set to your systems mailer com-
mand. The mailer must accept the text of the mail
via standard input (actually as a pipe from "cat
tmpfile"). "cmd" must be a Unix style command in
printf() format. See the section on Configuring
the mailer.
.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.
.compatibility
Enables compatibility mode. This shouldn't really
be set in the app-defaults file. If you wish to
use this feature, use the -c option.
.interval
Sets the timeout interval (in minutes) for when
the autosave timeout should expire. When this
timer expires, all notes are automatically saved
to disk.
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.anchorOffset
The offset is specified in pixels and is used to
determine the X and Y offsets from an anchor note
for a note being cascaded. The default value is
15 pixels.
.noSave If set to true then the auto-save feature is
turned off.
.noAlarm
If set to true then the alarms feature is turned
off. This will have the effect of graying out the
``Set Alarm'' and ``Unset Alarm'' options from
each Notes pull down menu.
.homeDir
Used to set the starting directory for the File
Selection Window used with the Open and Export
features.
ACTIONS
It is possible to rebind the mouse buttons in the Plaid
widget to perform different functions by changing the wid-
get's translations. It is not recommended that other
actions (as specified in the application defaults file) be
changed, however. 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 menu raising function, normally bound to
the right mouse button, is performed by calling the
actions XawPositionSimpleMenu(Menu) and MenuPopup(Menu).
This can now be configured by changing the following lines
in the Xpostit.ad file:
Xpostit*Plaid.Translations: #replace <Btn1Down>: raise()
<Btn2Down>: lower() <Btn3Down>: XawPositionSimpleMenu(Menu)
MenuPopup(Menu)
to the following:
Xpostit*Plaid.Translations: #replace <Btn3Down>: raise()
<Btn2Down>: lower() <Btn1Down>: XawPositionSimpleMenu(Menu)
MenuPopup(Menu)
THE CONTROL WINDOW
Xpostit allows three operations to be performed from its
control window. Pressing the left mouse button in the
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control window will cause all Post-it notes on the screen
to be raised to the top. Pressing the middle mouse button
in the control window will cause all Post-it notes on the
screen to be lowered to the bottom. Pressing the right
mouse button in the control window raises the xpostit
menu.
THE PLAID MENU
The xpostit plaid 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.
Unhide All Notes
All notes that have been hidden will be unhidden.
Save All Notes
Save all Post-it notes to disk files in the save
directory.
Hidden Notes
Pops up another menu which lists all the notes
that are currently hidden. The list contains the
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names of the notes so it is wise to give a note a
meaningful name (using the Name option from the
pull-down menu of each note) before it is hidden.
Cascade Notes
Each note can be "anchored". If one or more notes
are anchored and the "Cascade" option is chosen
from the xpostit menu, then all the visible notes
are cascaded onto the anchored notes. An attempt
is made to distribute all visible notes evenly
amongst all the anchored notes. Each note also
has an "unanchor" option as well. Only one of
"anchor" or "unanchor" is sensitive for any given
note. Hidden notes are not affected by the cas-
cade feature. The default offset for cascaded
notes (from the anchor) is 15 pixels. This can be
changed with the -ao option or the .anchorOffset
resource.
Find A Note
If you "lose" a note and want to bring it up at
the cursor, select ``Find A Note'' from the plaid
menu. A pop up window of all notes will be pre-
sented. Select the note you want and if its not
hidden it will pop up at the cursor. If it is
hidden it will pop up in the appropriate spot.
The ``Cancel'' button will close the pop up if no
note is selected.
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 HIDDEN NOTES MENU
This menu pops up from the ``Hidden Notes'' option of the
plaid menu. It functions the same as the plaid menu
except the menu does not disappear until either a menu
option is selected or the label (at the top of the menu)
is clicked on.
THE POST-IT NOTE
Each Post-it note is made up of three parts (plus an
optional scroll bar): a Title bar, a text window where the
text of the note is stored, and a menu bar.
The menu bar has two menus: File and Notes . The first of
these contains options pertaining to file input and out-
put, such as Open (for importing a file to the note),
Export (for saving the text contents of the note to a
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file), Print and Email.
The second menu contains items for manipulating the note:
Hiding, Naming, Erasing, Adding a calendar or date/time
stamp, etc.
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 manipu-
lating 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, click on the Notes button
and drag the mouse cursor to the menu item labeled
``Save'', then release the mouse button. The note will be
saved as the file ``noten'' in your save directory, where
n is some sequence number. Note that the ``Save'' menu
item will not allow you to save unless something have been
typed in the Text of the note, the name of the note has
been changed, or the text of the note has been erased.
This is a good way for checking if you've made changes to
the note. If the Save menu item is "insensitive" (grayed-
out) then you haven't made any changes to the Text of the
note. NOTE: it is important to remember that if you have
disabled the auto-save (sv)feature then the note will not
be saved until you have pressed the ``Save'' button. You
can also make sure changed notes get saved on exit by
enabling the ave on Exit feature.
To erase the entire contents of the text window, you can
click on the Notes button and select the ``Erase'' menu
item. 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 can-
celed, 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, click on the
Notes button and select the ``Destroy'' menu item. This
will bring up a confirmation window as described above.
If you confirm the operation, the Post-it note will disap-
pear from the screen and the disk file it was saved in
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will be deleted.
To rename a note, you can click on the Notes button and
select the ``Name'' menu item. This will bring up a dia-
log box, which has two buttons labeled ``Confirm'' and
``Cancel'' as well as a field to enter text for the new
name. If you press the ``Confirm'' button, the new name
will be placed in the title bar of the note. If you press
the ``Cancel'' button, the operation is canceled.
To hide a note, you can click on the Notes button and
select the ``Hide'' menu item. This will cause the note
to disappear from the screen. To bring the note back,
select the ``Hidden Notes'' option from the plaid pull-
down menu. Then select the note you wish to bring back
up. NOTE: The hidden notes will not stay hidden between
xpostit sessions unless you first select the "Save All
Notes" option from the plaid menu or options to save on
exit (see discussion above) have been set.
To anchor a note you can click on the Notes button and
select the ``Anchor'' menu item. This will mark the note
as an anchor note. Anchor notes are the bottom note, the
"anchor", when the Cascade option is chosen from the xpos-
tit plaid menu.
To unanchor a note you can click on the Notes button and
select the ``UnAnchor'' menu item. This will remove the
note from the list of anchor notes.
Note that only one of the ``Anchor'' or ``UnAnchor''
options will be sensitive (allow user selection) at any
time. They are mutually exclusive options within any give
note.
To print a note, you must have configured xpostit with a
valid print command (via the -printcmd command line option
or the .printCmd resource). Select the ``Print'' option
from the Notes pull down menu. The text of the note is
printed.
To email a note use the ``Email'' option. This option
will pop up a window prompting for an email address. Fill
in the text field and select ``Accept'' to send the mes-
sage. The notes title will be used as the subject line.
Select ``Cancel'' to cancel sending the message.
To set a notes alarm, select ``Set Alarm'' from the notes
Notes pull down menu. A window pops up with month, day,
hour and minute fields. Set each of these for the day and
time you wish the alarm to go off. If you wish to save
this value between invokations you should use either the
notes ``Save'' option or the ``Save All Notes'' option
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from the plaid windows menu. When a notes alarm is set an
icon of a clock will be visible next to the Options menu
button in the notes menu bar.
To turn off the a notes alarm, select ``Unset Alarm'' from
the Notes pull down menu. This will disable the alarm for
that note and remove the clock icon from the menu bar.
To insert a copy of the current calendar month in the text
select the "Insert Calendar" option from the notes menu.
The text will be inserted at the current cursor location,
so you should be sure to position the cursor first. You
can position the cursor by just clicking in the text win-
dow of the note.
Adding the date and time is done using the "Insert
Date..." option from the notes menu. A dialog box provid-
ing a variety of formats is presented. Select the format
desired by clicking on the small box to the left of the
format string and then click on "Accept". The text string
will be inserted at the current cursor location. Be sure
to position the cursor prior to using the option.
To import a text file at the current cursor location in a
note, use the File menu's Open option. A File Selection
Window opens. Choose a file and select ``Accept''. See
the section on the File Selection Window for more details.
Exporting the text to a file is similar to opening a file
for import. Choose the Export option from the File pull
down menu. Select a file from the File Selection Window.
Again, see the section on the ile Selection Window for
more details on how to use that window.
CONFIGURING THE MAILER
In order to use your systems mailer with the Email feature
of xpostit, you need to configure the appropriate mailer
command using either the -emailcmd command line option or
the .emailCmd resource. The format for both of these is
the same: a double-quoted string which contains the name
of the mailer command, the option for providing the sub-
ject line, and the addressee. By default the Unix command
"mail" is used. It is defined in the Xpostit.ad (and in
the source code fallback resources) as:
"mail -s
The format is the standard format used by printf(). The
first string parameter is the subject line. The back-
slashes are required so that the following double quotes
are passed properly to the shell. If these are left out
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the subject will be truncated to the first word of the
first string parameter and an attempt will be made by the
mailer to send mail to non-existant recipients.
The second string is the addressee. The order of the
string parameters is required (subject first, addressee
second). The mailer command accpets the text of the mail
via standard input. This too is required.
If you use elm, you might want to change this to:
"elm -s
The difference here is that elm prints out a few messages
when it runs in batch mode and you should send those to
/dev/null.
USING THE FILE SELECTION WINDOW
The File Selection Window contains two scrollable windows,
a text input field, and two buttons. The scrollable win-
dows contain the directories (the left-side scrollable
window) and the files (the right-side scrollable window)
in the current directory. These windows may not be the
same size if the number of directories or files isn't
enough to stretch the window to its maximum size before it
allows scrolling (ie don't report the windows being dif-
ferent sizes as a bug - its a feature). You can scroll
the windows the same way you scroll the text of the notes.
The buttons inside the scrollable windows only require a
single click to activate them. Clicking on a directory
button will close the File Selection Window and reopen it
using the new directory as its base. The scrollable win-
dows will be updated to reflect the files and directories
in that directory and the text input field will be updated
to show the current directory.
Clicking on a button in the files scrollable window will
cause that file to be selected. If you are opening a file
then the file chosen will be added to the current note at
the location of the cursor in that note. Be sure to set
the cursor to where you want to import text before opening
a file. If you are exporting a file then the text of the
file will be written to the file chosen. It is assumed
that since you manually selected a file known to exist
that you want to overwrite that file, so be sure you know
what you're doing before you click on a file for export-
ing!
The text input field can be used to manually type a direc-
tory or file name. If the name typed is a directory, the
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File Selection Window is closed and a new one opened using
the new directory as the base. If the name typed is a
file then that filename is used for the current task,
either opening or exporting. If exporting, and the file
exists, a window is popped up asking for confirmation to
overwrite that file. Click on ``Accept'' to proceed with
the export or ``Cancel'' to skip it.
The two buttons in the File Selection window are the
``Accept'' and ``Cancel'' buttons. The Cancel button
closes the File Selection Window with no further actions
taken. The Accept button only has meaning in relation to
the text input field. If you click on Accept, then what-
ever is in the text input field is used as the filename
for the current task (open or export) and the appropriate
action is taken.
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.
On Linux systems the word wrap feature of the Text Widget
appears broken. The words get wrapped to the next line
but they do not get erased from the previous line. I'm
not sure how to fix this. You can resize the note using
the window manager to clear the problem, or scroll the
note window.
The message: ``Warning: XtRemoveGrab asked to remove a
widget not on the list'' may be written to stdout after an
alarm popup is dismissed. This is a timing issue in the X
libs, I think, and doesn't appear to cause any problems.
The Dialog used to name a note doesn't limit the number of
characters that can be used in a name, although it does
prevent (by use of translations) a user from putting a
newline in the text. The drawback to not limiting the
length of the name is that the dialog box's text field
won't resize or scroll to the right as characters are
typed off the right hand edge of the field. Bummer dude.
This might be fixable if key events force a resize on each
keystroke. Hmmm. I'll have to think about that one.
The -c option has been reported to not read in old notes
properly. It eats the first line. This can be worked
around by adding a blank line to the old notes. However,
I couldn't reproduce this problem. I suggest creating a
backup of your old notes before trying to run with the -c
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option, just in case.
Hidden notes have their shell x and y coordinates set to 1
less than the note originally had them set to when the
program starts. I think this is either a problem with the
way fvwm was placing the notes when they were visible
(with window manager borders) or a problem with the X
libs. Probably fvwm. In anycase, over time, the notes
will slowly move toward the upper left, but only while
invisible. When you pop them up, things are fine. Basi-
cally, its not something worth fixing.
On some systems (all?), specifically Solaris, setting the
num-lock on prevents the pull-down menus from allowing the
user to select menu options. The fix: turn off numlock.
The File Selection Window is not graceful, but its func-
tional. I could have used the FWF FileSelection widget,
but that required including the complete FWF kit, which I
didn't want to have to do. Besides, I think I may switch
this to GTK (the GIMP Toolkit widget set) for the next
release. Maybe.
Without a color display for canary yellow notes and red
plaid, the aesthetic value of xpostit cannot be fully
appreciated.
AUTHOR
Originally by David A. Curry, SRI International, but the
majority of features and the current look of the notes are
the responsibility of Michael J. Hammel (mjham-
mel@csn.net).
``Post-it'' and the plaid design are registered trademarks
of 3M.
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