Help me understand Alt-F2 or the LXDE Run Command

[utu]

@ Klaus2008

Greetings, Klaus; thanks for your comments.

I've also noted that lxterminal -e (in either Run or Alt-F2)
works for mc, alsamixer and less /var/log/syslog
but does not work for vrms, ifconfig, dmesg


@ Werner & Klaus

I just ran across an interesting gui editor for the LXDE menu,
or at least the apps part of the menu. Looks neat. Installs
very painlessly. Find this at

http://lxmed.sourceforge.net/

Doing away with 'Run' isn't a capability of this editor, unfortunately.

[kl522]

I've also noted that lxterminal -e (in either Run or Alt-F2)
works for mc, alsamixer and less /var/log/syslog
but does not work for vrms, ifconfig, dmesg

You need to emulate "keep the window open" behaviour by doing something like this :-

          lxterminal -l -e "dmesg | less"
          lxterminal -l -e "ifconfig ; read INP "

It's quite painful to need to issue such commands. Maybe the GUI should be the one which encapsulate all this, with an option to run program in a terminal window and "keep the window open". Should probably be suggested to the author of lxpanelctl, perhaps.

Cheers.

[utu]

@ kl522

Thanks for your comments.

I suppose one could, with your help, tailor each command this way, but it's
still much easier to just to call up a 'real' lxterminal and enter the cli command.

My point here is the action of LXDE's Alt-F2/Run is just weird in the absolute,
let alone compared to several other well-established alternative standards.


@ To all concerned

I've spent a few minutes only with lxmed, but I already see a caveat to my
initial enthusiasm. lxmed does not seem to be an editor, but a composer.

The initial configuration which one edits is one based on one of four basic
linuxes: Debian, Red Hat, and (two others, but I forget which). This Debian
configuration does not exactly match Knoppix 6.7.1, notably missing out on
Knoppix's Universal Access submenu altogether.

lxmed may serve the purpose, but I'd make a copy of all relevant files before
applying any changes made by lxmed to a working Knoppix install.
We'd all probably do that anyway, I know.

[kl522]

@ kl522

Thanks for your comments.

I suppose one could, with your help, tailor each command this way, but it's
still much easier to just to call up a 'real' lxterminal and enter the cli command.

My point here is the action of LXDE's Alt-F2/Run is just weird in the absolute,
let alone compared to several other well-established alternative standards.

This is not something I put emphasis on and I have no experience using other desktops in this 'run' dialog. So I can't compare the "other well-establish alternative standards".

But for the minimum, I noticed that you get the same thing in Windows XP. Try to enter 'ipconfig', 'route' etc into Windows Start->run. It will not work properly !

On the other hand, I think it's a trivial source code change to add two checkboxes, one checkbox for 'run program in terminal emulator' and another checkbox for 'keep terminal emulator window open'. It's a matter of whether the author feels like wanting to add this into the 'run' dialog.