[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] using execl

[From: Brad Burleson]

Thanks to all for the info, and I've actually just started to look at
bt-plugin.c.

I am sorry for the previous question, I sent it before I was quite finished
editing.  So, to add on a bit to what I asked - and to get at what I was
really asking:

It seems to me that most 3rd party applications will want to have a desktop
plugin to launch them.  In fact, I can imagine people wanting more web links
on their desktop than one.

So, I'm trying to write a simple generic 'launcher' for a Maemo
application.  Would I be better off to use D-Bus instead?  (is it safe to
assume all applications will be a D-BUS service?)

Thanks,

Brad.

PS Tomas - I was looking at bt-plugin.c and was wondering if it would be
fairly trivial to add in support for some of the extra keys on the Nokia
keyboard?  And I suppose sending a signal to keep the screen active is not
easy to do?  (I'd think if it was you would have added it).


On 12/15/05, Tomas Junnonen <tomas.junnonen at nokia.com> wrote:
>
> ext Brad Burleson wrote:
> > I'm probably doing something stupid, but I'm trying to write a home
> > plug-in that executes a shell script (which, in turn, will eventually
> > launch some application).  I hacked the code from one of the nokia
> > 'hello-world-app' programs and except for struggling with the gnu build
> > tools (and my own ignorance) things are going well.
> >
> > My code looks like this:
> >
> >   execl("/bin/sh", "sh", "-c", "pplay", (char *)0);
> >
> > When I do this within a callback, as soon as the button is clicked the
> > screen turns white and the script - and application - runs, but the UI
> > is broken - hard to explain, but it's not drawn completely and the only
> > function that seems to work is to close the program.  At which point,
> > the 770 reboots.
> >
> > (my feeble mind says it must be related to the [l]eave part of execl())
> >
> > Any tips on how to execute a shell script (or any binary) from a maemo
> > application?
>
> The home plugins do not have their own main loop but use the desktop's,
> so when you call execl the desktop process image is in fact replaced
> with that of the called program.
>
> As pete said, you should use the g_spawn_* functions instead. In
> practice you should only ever be using the async versions in the home
> plugins and statusbar applets, as they will not block updating of the
> desktop while your child process runs. If you need an example of using
> g_spawn_async, take a look at the btkeyboards plugin at
> http://770.fs-security.com/keyboards.html.
>
> Regards,
> Tomas
>
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