Fun Little Acire Story

Posted on February 27, 2010 - by jono

With the new release of Acire just out I wanted to tell you folks a fun little story of an added benefit to Acire that I never envisaged when I came up with the idea for the app.

Yesterday I got an email from someone (I will keep the identify private) saying:

I’m trying to create an application but I can’t seem to find any way to embed a gnome-terminal into my app. I know you’re not offering support but if you have some spare time is there any chance you can point me to the documentation for that?

This happens a lot: someone wants to do something, so they ask for help over email or on another medium such as IRC. Unfortunately, I am usually pretty busy and typically don’t have the time to answer support questions. Before Acire existed I would have at most hunted out some links or possibly just the person to to go and ask on a particular forum or mailing list.

Now Acire exists, I just fired it up, selected Python VTE from the cateogries combo box, clicked on the snippet, and then cut and pasted the code into the email:

#!/usr/bin/env python

# [SNIPPET_NAME: Embed a VTE terminal]
# [SNIPPET_CATEGORIES: Python VTE]
# [SNIPPET_DESCRIPTION: Embed a VTE terminal in your application]

try:
    import gtk
except:
    print >> sys.stderr, "You need to install the python gtk bindings"
    sys.exit(1)

# import vte
try:
    import vte
except:
    error = gtk.MessageDialog (None, gtk.DIALOG_MODAL, gtk.MESSAGE_ERROR, gtk.BUTTONS_OK,
        'You need to install python bindings for libvte')
    error.run()
    sys.exit (1)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    # create the terminal
    v = vte.Terminal()
    v.connect ("child-exited", lambda term: gtk.main_quit())

    # fork_command() will run a command, in this case it shows a prompt
    v.fork_command()

    # create a window and add the VTE
    window = gtk.Window()
    window.add(v)
    window.connect('delete-event', lambda window, event: gtk.main_quit())

    # you need to show the VTE
    window.show_all()

    # Finally, run the application
    gtk.main()

Job done. What made me smile about this was that Acire not only helps me, but it helped me help someone else too. Rocking.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at 12:10 am and is filed under Acire, Community, Desktop, Opportunistic Developers, Ubuntu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Comments

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February 27, 2010

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ethana2 said:

Is there any way to submit snippet requests through acire?

Like, how do I request administrative authentication in a Java app?
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  February 27, 2010
  
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  Ed S said:
  
  Acire is targeted at the Python+GTK+GNOME stack that is popular for Ubuntu development – see Jono’s post, http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/01/30/connecting-the-opportunistic-dots/ It has features (including ongoing work) that work for Python, and will not work for Java (at least, not without major modifications to the code – though who knows what people might add in the future). Second, there isn’t currently any way to request snippets through Acire. That would need a communication mechanism like a mailing list/forum/etc – a link to which could be put on Acire’s Help menu, once the forum is set up In fact, Jono wants more programmers to join in and submit Python snippets to the python-snippets project on Launchpad.net… if you write Python, consider contributing!
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February 27, 2010

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CoolGoose said:

Thanks again Jono for the tips
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February 27, 2010

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Rich said:

Brilliant idea, I plan on using this myself – but I must say, the logo is crap! How about something a bit more scalable and colorful, eh Jono?
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February 28, 2010

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uninja said:

Don’t forget to import sys before the attempt to import vte.
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March 12, 2010

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Jon said:

I’ve install acire and python-snippets, is it right that the only categories I see are pygtksourceview, cairo, apport and pygtk?
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