Re: [Suggestion] LILO-like direct menu item access && scripting

[Marc-Jano Knopp]

On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 at 17:33 (+0000), Marco Gerards wrote:
> Serbinenko Vladimir <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Not at all because this syntax will mean that key is executed
> > before choosing entry that I don't like. I propose the following
> > syntaxes (I'm waiting for your suggestions which to use):
> 
> In that case you just should not press that key. :)
> 
> There is only the problem of key collisions (c is used for the
> console, for example).  Perhaps 0-9, c-a and c-z can be used or so, I
> personally don't care too much about this.

Strange, both of you don't seem to like the idea of a menu mode, and
rather accept restrictions in the choice of menu item letters. I would
rather install Windows than accept such an inconsistency or restriction.
;-)

Though I'm out of time for doing this myself, it doesn't seem too
difficult to introduce a menu mode in GRUB: a flag, e.g.
lilo_menu_mode and possibly a single if-statement to choose between
the two command parsers and/or tables.

Or am I too optimistic?

As I mentioned before, there should be a way to absolutely (not
relatively) select this LILO menu mode, so that you can really blindly
work with it. So a toggle-menu-mode command/key (alone) will not
suffice, there should be two different commands/keys for selecting
the native GRUB command mode and the LILO menu mode.

Additionally, the LILO menu mode could be indicated by a(n) (un)lit
CapsLock LED, which most PC and many workstation keyboards have.

And of course, the current mode should be printed well visible on
the screen (inverted "LILO MENU MODE" or something).


Finally, we need a grub.conf entry for choosing the default mode:

  lilomenumode on

Done. :-)


Of course, the lilo menu behavior is also possible without an extra
mode, but then you have use Ctrl/Alt/whatever for either the GRUB
commands or the LILO selection, and in both cases it's unnecessarily
cumbersome (especially, if a menu item could be selected by a whole
/string/, not a just a single letter/cipher).

If you insist on modeless operation (oh, c'mon! :-}, please us Alt
instead of Ctrl; it's much easier to use, as the left thumb isn't
used elsewhere (the space bar can be operated with the right thumb
as well) - as opposed to the left pinky. :-)


> But it would be nice, IMHO, if it was clear which entry has which
> hotkey.  Perhaps the title can be followed by the key in some
> different color or so?

Hmm... I think the other way round would be nicer, as that's the
usual way to do it (and everything is naturally aligned nicely then).
(I think in LILO menus the order is the same, i.e. first letters, then
name of the menu item).

Then again, the best solution would be a user definable (in
grub.conf) format string with %h for hotkey/hot"string" and %n for the
menu item name etc.


> > entry "SuSE 7.3 (2.4.29)":l
> > {
> >     root (hd0,2)
> >     kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 vga=extended rootflags=data=journal
> > }
> 
> Personally I would prefer something like:
> 
> entry "SuSE 7.3 (2.4.29)" key="1"
> {
>     root (hd0,2)
>     kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 vga=extended rootflags=data=journal
> }

I'd prefer the latter, too, as it's nicer to read, indeed. But the
first example is also still quite readable, especially when you choose
the keys/strings appropriately, so you can implement whatever you like.


Oh, of course it's right what Vladimir wrote: the hotkey should not
execute a menu item directly, but move the selection bar over it, so
that you can execute it with [Return]. The word "select" is too
ambiguous here.


It would be nice to have some kind of incremental search feature, just
as IIRC LILO offers (I think that's what Vladimir meant), but the
1-letter/cipher selection would be okay, too.


> Or we could just give *every* menu item a hotkey and make it
> configurable to make it visual (like I described above) or not.

Hmm... you mean every item has an implicit, automatically generated
hotkey unless the user defines hotkeys of his own? Well, as long as
it's printed somewhere, why not. But I think that there should be a
way to undefine these automatically given hotkeys for each menu item
then - at least I would like to be able to do so, as otherwise I'd
feel like losing control a little, and then I could also install
Windows. :-)


Best regards

  Marc-Jano