Introduce the i3-sensible-{pager,editor,terminal} scripts

The former two provide fallbacks in case $PAGER or $EDITOR is not set (which
might be more common than you think, because they have to be set in
~/.xsession, not in the shell configuration!) while the latter tries to launch
a terminal emulator. The scripts are most prominently used in i3-nagbar, which
alerts the user when the configuration is broken for some reason. Also,
i3-sensible-terminal is used in the default configuration.

This commit does not rely on the shell supporting ${PAGER:-less} anymore, which
is not the case for 'fish'.

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 15ccf0e648f49385be5ef237cbf5cc53dc92d8d2..bec6b64b3bc923b607394c11013b8e446380c85f 100644 (file)
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -80,6 +80,9 @@ install: all
        $(INSTALL) -d -m 0755 $(DESTDIR)$(PREFIX)/share/xsessions
        $(INSTALL) -m 0755 i3 $(DESTDIR)$(PREFIX)/bin/
        $(INSTALL) -m 0755 i3-migrate-config-to-v4 $(DESTDIR)$(PREFIX)/bin/
+       $(INSTALL) -m 0755 i3-sensible-editor $(DESTDIR)$(PREFIX)/bin/
+       $(INSTALL) -m 0755 i3-sensible-pager $(DESTDIR)$(PREFIX)/bin/
+       $(INSTALL) -m 0755 i3-sensible-terminal $(DESTDIR)$(PREFIX)/bin/
        test -e $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONFDIR)/i3/config || $(INSTALL) -m 0644 i3.config $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONFDIR)/i3/config
        test -e $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONFDIR)/i3/config.keycodes || $(INSTALL) -m 0644 i3.config.keycodes $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONFDIR)/i3/config.keycodes
        $(INSTALL) -m 0644 i3.welcome $(DESTDIR)$(SYSCONFDIR)/i3/welcome

diff --git a/PACKAGE-MAINTAINER b/PACKAGE-MAINTAINER
index 3d9a8e1812f995df02520f0c5588dbc6096f9ccd..269ce0fd12992be1670ca400ce6113c53df83731 100644 (file)
--- a/PACKAGE-MAINTAINER
+++ b/PACKAGE-MAINTAINER
@@ -10,15 +10,21 @@ packages for them.
 Please make sure the manpage for i3 will be properly created and installed
 in your package.
 
-Also please provide the path to a suitable terminal emulator which is installed
-as a dependency of your package (e.g. urxvt). On systems which have a special
-commend to launch the best available terminal emulator, please use this one
-(e.g. x-terminal-emulator on debian).
+Please check the i3-sensible-{editor,pager,terminal} scripts and modify them if
+necessary. The former two provide fallbacks in case $PAGER or $EDITOR is not
+set (which might be more common than you think, because they have to be set in
+~/.xsession, not in the shell configuration!) while the latter tries to launch
+a terminal emulator. The scripts are most prominently used in i3-nagbar, which
+alerts the user when the configuration is broken for some reason. Also,
+i3-sensible-terminal is used in the default configuration.
 
-On debian, this looks like this:
+If your distribution has a mechanism to get the preferred terminal, such as the
+x-terminal-emulator symlink in Debian, please use it in i3-sensible-terminal.
+
+On debian, compilation and installing the manpages looks like this:
 
        # Compilation
-       $(MAKE) TERM_EMU=x-terminal-emulator
+       $(MAKE)
        $(MAKE) -C man
 
        # Installation

diff --git a/common.mk b/common.mk
index 62eb99586e4ddbb9d799b3009319fac5f7b711ec..78033946eeaf542fafb45bbdcedb0492c1e35931 100644 (file)
--- a/common.mk
+++ b/common.mk
@@ -12,7 +12,6 @@ ifndef SYSCONFDIR
     SYSCONFDIR=$(PREFIX)/etc
   endif
 endif
-TERM_EMU=xterm
 # The escaping is absurd, but we need to escape for shell, sed, make, define
 GIT_VERSION:="$(shell git describe --tags --always) ($(shell git log --pretty=format:%cd --date=short -n1), branch $(shell [ -f $(TOPDIR)/.git/HEAD ] && sed 's/ref: refs\/heads\/\(.*\)/\\\\\\"\1\\\\\\"/g' $(TOPDIR)/.git/HEAD || echo 'unknown'))"
 VERSION:=$(shell git describe --tags --abbrev=0)

diff --git a/i3-sensible-editor b/i3-sensible-editor
new file mode 100755 (executable)
index 0000000..dffe00d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/i3-sensible-editor
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+# This script tries to exec an editor by trying some known editors if $EDITOR is
+# not set.
+#
+# Distributions/packagers can enhance this script with a
+# distribution-specific mechanism to find the preferred pager.
+which $VISUAL >/dev/null && exec $VISUAL "$@"
+which $EDITOR >/dev/null && exec $EDITOR "$@"
+
+# Hopefully one of these is installed (no flamewars about preference please!):
+which nano >/dev/null && exec nano "$@"
+which vim >/dev/null && exec vim "$@"
+which vi >/dev/null && exec vi "$@"
+which emacs >/dev/null && exec emacs "$@"

diff --git a/i3-sensible-pager b/i3-sensible-pager
new file mode 100755 (executable)
index 0000000..5af8d6b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/i3-sensible-pager
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+# This script tries to exec a pager by trying some known pagers if $PAGER is
+# not set.
+#
+# Distributions/packagers can enhance this script with a
+# distribution-specific mechanism to find the preferred pager.
+which $PAGER >/dev/null && exec $PAGER "$@"
+
+# Hopefully one of these is installed:
+which most >/dev/null && exec most "$@"
+which less >/dev/null && exec less "$@"
+# we don't use 'more' because it will exit if the file is 'too short'
+
+# If no pager is installed, try an editor
+exec i3-sensible-editor "$@"

diff --git a/i3-sensible-terminal b/i3-sensible-terminal
new file mode 100755 (executable)
index 0000000..28e6062
--- /dev/null
+++ b/i3-sensible-terminal
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+# This script tries to exec a terminal emulator by trying some known terminal
+# emulators.
+#
+# Distributions/packagers should enhance this script with a
+# distribution-specific mechanism to find the preferred terminal emulator. On
+# Debian, there is the x-terminal-emulator symlink for example.
+# Please don't touch the first line, though:
+which $TERMINAL >/dev/null && exec $TERMINAL "$@"
+
+# Hopefully one of these is installed:
+which xterm >/dev/null && exec xterm "$@"
+which urxvt >/dev/null && exec urxvt "$@"
+which rxvt >/dev/null && exec rxvt "$@"
+which roxterm >/dev/null && exec roxterm "$@"

diff --git a/i3.config b/i3.config
index 52c4a7e16044a3c267614715e83246b85e089a76..7d7fce3301c664cf34326b5b8a1b84c579e77d26 100644 (file)
--- a/i3.config
+++ b/i3.config
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
 floating_modifier Mod1
 
 # start a terminal
-bindsym Mod1+Return exec urxvt
+bindsym Mod1+Return exec i3-sensible-terminal
 
 # kill focused window
 bindsym Mod1+Shift+q kill

diff --git a/i3.config.keycodes b/i3.config.keycodes
index 17e7483bb0abd78543f450ac300ce3e37435f861..0f1112dba65fc6d3c05541ab5b2a630c596e33bb 100644 (file)
--- a/i3.config.keycodes
+++ b/i3.config.keycodes
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
 floating_modifier $mod
 
 # start a terminal
-bindcode $mod+36 exec urxvt
+bindcode $mod+36 exec i3-sensible-terminal
 
 # kill focused window
 bindcode $mod+Shift+24 kill

diff --git a/src/cfgparse.y b/src/cfgparse.y
index 12a60f4df114c7490793184bbf5ced703bc84967..9a417f2aba0b54aeb65cd059f9947d756e617c6d 100644 (file)
--- a/src/cfgparse.y
+++ b/src/cfgparse.y
@@ -276,9 +276,9 @@ static void start_configerror_nagbar(const char *config_path) {
     if (configerror_pid == 0) {
         char *editaction,
              *pageraction;
-        if (asprintf(&editaction, TERM_EMU " -e sh -c \"${EDITOR:-vi} \"%s\" && i3-msg reload\"", config_path) == -1)
+        if (asprintf(&editaction, "i3-sensible-terminal -e sh -c \"i3-sensible-editor \\\"%s\\\" && i3-msg reload\"", config_path) == -1)
             exit(1);
-        if (asprintf(&pageraction, TERM_EMU " -e sh -c \"${PAGER:-less} \"%s\"\"", errorfilename) == -1)
+        if (asprintf(&pageraction, "i3-sensible-terminal -e i3-sensible-pager \"%s\"", errorfilename) == -1)
             exit(1);
         char *argv[] = {
             NULL, /* will be replaced by the executable path */