invisible mouse & auto start program

Forum: HD Install
Topic: invisible mouse & auto start program
started by: vstech

Posted by vstech on Oct. 26 2007,05:24

Thanks for the help on the auto mounting with the bootlocal.sh, that part is now working fine...

I am making a digital picture frame from an old laptop, and so far I the system will copy pictures automaticly from an inserted flash card at boot up to a picture directory (utilizing bootlocal.sh). BUt I have been unable to qiv to start with the bootlocal.sh script, obviously because the x server is not running yet.

SO, how can I get fluxbox to auto start qiv? and is there a way to get it start again automaticly if it is closed? And lastly, is there an 'invisible' mouse pointer that can be installed so that the mouse is not always in the middle of the displayed picture?

Posted by mikshaw on Oct. 26 2007,13:05

For applications that need X, put your command in /home/dsl/.xinitrc (*before* the window manager is started).
The bootlocal.sh script is not intended to be used for *any* user applications. It is only for apps that require root power, such as system indexing or starting daemons.

The easiest way to remove the cursor is with an application called unclutter. This removes the cursor while it is idle, and brings it back when you move the mouse.
There is a way to set an empty cursor, but I don't recall how at the moment.

Posted by curaga on Oct. 26 2007,13:22

X programs are started in /home/dsl/.xinitrc.

To start it, and to keep it running, add something like

while [ 1 ]; do
/path/to/qiv imagedir
done

to the end of it, and add a & at the previous last command (probably fluxbox)

There is a one-pixel mouse cursor, you can find it in the forums, and there's also an app that will hide the mouse completely after some seconds of not moving it..

Posted by robc on Oct. 26 2007,15:43

I found this solution for an invisible cursor about a month ago:

< http://forums.realsoftware.com/viewtop....se+hide >

Posted by vstech on Oct. 26 2007,18:10

Thanks for your help... I added those lines (using both suggestions) but qiv does not start.

I do get an error at boot, about not able to lock .Xauthority, but it goes by fast and that is about all I can read. There was also another about GDK (?), again it went by too fast. I tried to hit pause but it had no effect.

I know that you can exit qiv, and I wonder if it exits it as flux is loaded. I had hoped the one suggestion would keep it going or restart it if that happened, but I am not sure it has started at all yet.

Posted by robc on Oct. 26 2007,22:20

you can have cron call a script to start qiv if it is not currently running. in /opt/crontab write something like this:

Code Sample

* * * * * * /home/dsl/autostart.sh > /dev/null &

In the file autostart.sh have something like:

Code Sample

#!/bin/bash
PROCESS=`pgrep qiv`
if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
qiv -o black -m -s -r -d 2 /path/to/images/* &
fi

The crontab setup will run the script every minute. For more info on cron see the man page or do a search on cron.

Though if you are getting a GDK error then qiv probably won't run. It may require gtk2 if you don't already have it.

Posted by mikshaw on Oct. 27 2007,01:34

You might consider using a different image viewer if qiv needs some extra libs. The gqview.uci extension doesn't require anything extra, and it has a built-in slideshow feature. The image quality is slightly lower than the more recent Gtk2 versions of gqview, but it is MUCH lighter and faster.