Help Me Please, El Kaptain
One of the problems with Linux on the desktop has been the perceived
need to run all programs using the command line. Of course, with the KDE
and GNOME desktops, Linux users can avoid the command line for most
tasks, but there still comes a time when you need to enter a Linux
command.
Many non-Linux users worry about the complex, cryptic commands Linux
inherits from its UNIX heritage. Let's face it, what some consider a
great expressive power others fear as a daunting command line.
Especially when compared to the yucky shell on Windows, what Linux
offers is light years ahead.
But, the complex, non-standard array of command-line switches makes
Linux commands harder to learn than they ought to be. That's where tools
like Kaptain can help.
Available from http://www.hszk.bme.hu/%7Etz124/kaptain/, Kaptain uses
the Qt libraries, the same libraries that the KDE desktop uses.
Much like Commando on the old Mac, Kaptain presents a GUI dialog on top
of Linux command-line programs. Commands like find are hard for new
users, especially users migrating from Windows. With a tool like
Kaptain, you can present a more friendly front end on top of Linux
commands like find, grep, and enscript.
The enscript support is great, since I rarely change the options, I have
never learned the program like I have grep and find.
Unlike Commando, though, Kaptain doesn't show the completed command. I
really liked Commando because it showed the complete command as you
entered the options. This helped me to learn some commands, and
especially some of the more obscure options. After a while, you don't
need the tool because you remember the options.
Kaptain works by running a program called kaptain that reads in a
special file that describes all the options for a given Linux command.
The kaptain program creates a dialog showing all the options and allows
the user to build up the command to run. Once complete, the user can
click on the OK button to run the command.
The syntax of these special files, called grammar files, is not that
hard to figure out, so you can add your own commands without too much
work.
» posted by ITworld staff
ITworld
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