Using WORKBENCH arexx port

To add the very usefull rexx:Opendrawer.rexx script to the WB tools menu was a bit less straightforward than to add it to ContextMenus


here is the endresult

Add the following line
RX ' address WORKBENCH "MENU ADD NAME OpenDrawer TITLE ,Opendrawer, CMD rexx:OpenDrawer.rexx" '
to the Startup-Sequence after the LoadWB command (since the WORKBENCH arexx port will not exist before, and user-startup is called before LoadWB

Now i wanted to define a number of aliases making use of the WORKBENCH port too
alias RootSize RX ' address Workbench "changewindow ROOT LEFTEDGE 0 TOPEDGE 30 WIDTH 1920 HEIGHT 970 "'
alias RootByType RX ' address Workbench "menu window root invoke WINDOW.CLEANUPBY.TYPE "'
alias RootFix RX ' address Workbench "menu window root invoke WINDOW.SNAPSHOT.ALL "'

They were put into the Aliases file in s:

and i added the line
execute Aliases
behind the RX' line above.

Here however i observed a strange phenomenon (on my SAM460ex OS4.1 Update6)
The Workbench window had a large black bar on its lower side.
Any explanation or suggestion ?
( i tried putting a WAIT 1 SEC between the RX' and the execute lines, to no avail)




(

Aliases are normally put into the Shell-Startup file, not in your system startup scripts. This way they are available in each Shell. Not that I think that has anything to do with that black bar.

And even if you want to run something from your startup, you should (normally) do it from User-Startup, not Startup-Sequence.

But especially about the ARexx commands for setting the WB menu items, what I do is as follows:

I have the script MkWbItems.rexx in my S:ARexx dir, with an icon where "Start from" is set to ARexx. The script contains the commands for each menu item, in the form:

address WORKBENCH 'MENU ADD NAME <name> TITLE <title> CMD <command>'

This script is added to my WBStartup prefs, so it always runs after WB has loaded.

In general, when something is depending on WB having loaded, start it from WBStartup (if necessary as a script either the above way or e.g. with IconX).

Best regards,

Niels

@Niels
thanks for the WB Startup suggestion.
I did retest though putting my aliases addressing WORKBENCH arexx port in user-startup.

This time it works, the aliases are available . I must have mixed up problems with my user-startup.

And indeed aliases are just replacing a keyword with a command string. If Workbench is allready open should not matter.

I

@JosDuchIt

Quote:I agree, for the aliases, as long as you are sure nothing will use them before WB has definitely loaded, because the command setting the menu item must of course wait for WB to have loaded, and since the aliases are created after that, they will also not be available until after WB is loaded (apart from the fact, of course, that they also themselves want a loaded WB when used).

Best regards,

Niels

While we're talking about it, here I have such script:

ADDRESS workbench

KEYBOARD ADD NAME open KEY 'return' CMD "'MENU INVOKE ICONS.OPEN"
KEYBOARD ADD NAME delete KEY 'del' CMD "'MENU INVOKE ICONS.DELETE"


To use return and del keys like in Win...argh