Cbar - scriptable context sidebar for KDE

About
News
Screenshots
Releases and downloads
Documentation

About

Cbar is a sidebar with the following goals:

Provide contextual information when browsing directories, similar to Metabar and Windows sidebar.
Easy to extend by providing extensions in the form of scripts.
Cross-platform (thanks to using scripts, which are platform-independent).

Cbar wouldn't be created without many other people. Thanks go to:

KDE team - for creating such a great and extensible system as KDE.
Phil Thompson - for creating Python bindings for Qt (pyQt) and KDE (pyKDE).
Sebastian Sauer - for creating Kross scripting engine for KDE.
Florian Roth - for creating Metabar.
OU - for everything.

Author: Krzysztof Lichota <krzysiek-cbar@lichota.net>
Homepage: http://lichota.net/~krzysiek/projects/cbar/
License: GPL v2

News

October 18, 2006

Release first Ubuntu/Debian package for version 0.9.3.

October 11, 2006

Version 0.9.3 released with new features.

September 28, 2006

Version 0.9.2 released with speedup improvements and removing Kross dependency.

August 27, 2006

Version 0.9.1 with bugfix for configuration saving released.

August 25, 2006

Initial version 0.9.0 released.

Screenshots

Version 0.9.3

New script manager

New widget - file management actions

Version 0.9.0 (beta1 aka "Warsaw Uprising")

Screenshot 1 - Cbar after selecting archive file

Screenshot 2 - HTML file, open with contains 2 applications. Clicking on app starts it.

Screenshot 3 - preview of image file

Screenshot 4 - 2 items selected, note that "Open with" group automatically hidden itself as there are no actions possible

Screenshot 5 - metadata information for image file, Places group has been folded to not use space

Screenshot 6 - script configuration dialog

Screenshot 7 - context information for opened image file

Screenshot 8 - eject button appears when CD item is selected

Releases

Version 0.9.3 (October 11, 2006)

Download source: cbar-0.9.3.tar.gz
Download Ubuntu/Debian package (warning - no dependencies!): cbar_0.9.3-1_i386.deb

Changes since last version:

Added new widget - file management actions.
Implemented new script manager, which supports choosing theme manager, choosing script loader and installing new scripts from .tgz archive.
Python is initialized only if it has not been initialized previously.
Removed unnecessary -L/usr/lib from compilation. Compilation on x86_64 should work fine now.

Requirements and installation the same as in version 0.9.2.

Version 0.9.2 (September 28, 2006)

First beta version for users.

Features:

Pluggable scripts for selected items, selected folder, theme and script loading.
Konqueror sidebar module.
Preloading plugin for fast loading.
Basic scripts showing capabilities of Cbar:

Image preview
Other places
File details
Eject media

Generic Cbar library with scripting capabilities, which can be embedded in other modules.

Download: cbar-0.9.2.tar.gz
Requirements (for compilation):

KDE headers - on Ubuntu it is package "kdelibs4-dev" and "kdebase-dev".
Python - on Ubuntu it is package "python2.4".
pyQt and pyKDE (Python bindings for Qt and KDE). On Ubuntu it is package "python-qt3" and "python-kde3", respectively.
autoconf 2.5 and automake>1.6 - on Ubuntu it is package "autoconf" and "automake1.9", respectively. You have to switch automake to 1.9 by running "sudo update-alternatives --config automake" on Ubuntu.

Installation:

Compile according to these instructions.
Open Konqueror in "filemanagement" profile (for example using "Home" icon on taskbar).
Right click on sidebar icon bar, in context menu choose Configure Navigation Panel->Add New->Cbar.
Switch to Cbar in sidebar.
Go to Konqueror settings dialog (Settings->Configure Konqueror...).
Choose "Performance" tab (at the bottom).
Make sure "Minimize memory usage" is set to "For file browsing only (recommended)".
Make sure in "Preloading" section "Maximum number instances kept preloaded" is set to at least 1.
Make sure in "Preloading" section "Preload an instance after KDE startup" is checked.
For best experience, set icon activation to "Double click" in KDE Control Center. Otherwise you cannot click on icon to see its description or options, you have to select it with Ctrl key.

Notes:

If you experience long loading time of Konqueror, make sure you are using "file management" profile (see in Konqueror menu Settings->Save view profile XXX, XXX is the name of profile. If you have right profile, check if preloading is set up properly as described in "Installation" step above.

Changes since last version:

Improved startup time by preloading Python KDE libraries (3 seconds -> 120 ms).
Removed dependency on Kross.
Cleaned up scripts as importing libraries in each function is no longer needed.

Installation has been tested on Kubuntu 6.06 and KDE 3.5.3.

Version 0.9.1 (August 27, 2006)

Bugfix release fixing problem with saving configuration of enabled scripts.
Download: cbar-0.9.1.tar.gz

Version 0.9.0 (August 25, 2006)

This is beta release aimed mainly at developers (although fully functional) to get feedback.
Installation has been tested on Kubuntu 6.06 and KDE 3.5.3.

Download: cbar-0.9.0.tar.gz
Features:

Cbar library with scripting capabilities (using Kross).
Konqueror sidebar module.
Python binding library.
Basic scripts showing capabilities of Cbar:

Image preview
Other places
File details
Eject media

Current issues:

Initial loading of sidebar is slow.

Requirements (for compilation):

KDE headers - on Ubuntu it is package "kdelibs4-dev" and "kdebase-dev".
Kross (part of KOffice) - on Ubuntu it is package "koffice-dev".
Python - on Ubuntu it is package "python2.4".
pyQt and pyKDE (Python bindings for Qt and KDE). On Ubuntu it is package "python-qt3" and "python-kde3", respectively.
autoconf 2.5 and automake>1.6 - on Ubuntu it is package "autoconf" and "automake1.9", respectively. You have to switch automake to 1.9 by running "sudo update-alternatives --config automake" on Ubuntu.

Documentation

Compilation

Install all required packages (see Requirements above).
Run: WANT_AUTOCONF_2_5="1" WANT_AUTOMAKE_1_6="1" make -f Makefile.cvs
Run: ./configure --prefix=`kde-config --prefix`
Run: make
Run: sudo make install

For users

Compile and install package. Then add Cbar sidebar into Konqueror sidebar - open Konqueror, press F9 to show sidebar, click on configuration button, then "Add new"->"Cbar".
You can configure, which scripts will be enabled by clicking button "Configure scripts" at the top.

For developers

Cbar consists of Cbar library and Cbar sidebar.
Cbar library is aimed at providing generic bar widget, which can be reused in many types of applications. Cbar sidebar is a Konqueror sidebar which uses Cbar library.
As library can be reused in different components, configuration is two-tiered, first subdirectory for specific type of Cbar is checked (based on Cbar name, passed in Cbar constructor), then common configuration file is checked.
Please keep it in mind, for example do not assume Konqueror instance will always be the available in script.

For script writers

Overview

In Cbar library C++ part is kept to the minimum possible, all work is delegated to scripts.
There are 3 types of scripts:

Script loader - handles management of scripts. See defaultScriptLoader.py script for example.
Theme manager - handles display of widgets. Arranges them on screen, provides frames, show/hide buttons, and background theme.
Widget scripts - scripts which create widgets.

All scripts can be replaced. If theme or script loader script is not present, Cbar will try to fall back to default script. Paths to scripts are kept in file ~/.kde/share/config/CbarSidebar/cbarrc. You can modify it to load your scripts for testing. Note that ScriptsToLoad section is modified by script configuration dialog, so using it will overwrite your changes in this section.
Example contents of cbarrc:

[ScriptLoader]

scriptPath=/home/user/mydeveldirectory/defaultScriptLoader.py


[ScriptsToLoad]

scripts=/usr/share/apps/cbar/scripts/cbarEjectMedia.py,/usr/share/apps/cbar/scripts/cbarFilePrevie

w.py,/usr/share/apps/cbar/scripts/cbarOpenWith.py,/usr/share/apps/cbar/scripts/cbarOtherPlaces.py,

/usr/share/apps/cbar/scripts/cbarSelectedItems.py


[ThemeManager]

scriptPath=/home/user/mydeveldirectory/defaultThemeManager.py

If you provide paths to your development directory, you don't have to install scripts every time you edit them. Just modify script and run Konqueror again :)

API for scripts

NOTE: API is still unstable and subject to change in future versions.
API for scripts is in module "cbar". Then you have to create Cbar class instance and you can use its methods.
For widget scripts the most important method is "addCbarWidget(widget, params)".
It takes the following parameters:

widget - reference to class inheriting from QWidget.
params - dictionary with parameters which control how this widget can be used. Currently there is only one interpreted parameter "type", which controls in which action group theme manager will show widget.

addCbarWidget() returns QObject reference, which can be used to connect signals to your widget's slots.
The following signals are currently available:

signalItemsSelected(const KFileItemList &) - some file items have been selected in directory view
signalUrlOpened(const QString &) - directory view has been switched to this directory

IMPORTANT: For unknown for me reasons, you have to import all necessary modules in each method. Importing at the module level does not provide proper symbols.
Notes:

Do not assume any background color for your widget. Background is determined by theme manager.
If your widget does not present valid information for given URL/file items, hide() it. Theme manager can hide any action group if it does not provide useful information, to save space.

In your widget you can use any KDE/Qt feature thanks to pyKDE and pyQt. For example, to perform action on Konqueror, you can use DCOP (see otherPlaces script for example how to use DCOP).

Scripts provided with cbar should give you a template how to create your own script. Remember to change .desktop file if you change name of python script!
If you want to install your new script manually, copy .desktop and .py file to directory ~/.kde/share/apps/cbar/scripts/ (or global /usr/share/apps/cbar/scripts/)

Preparing package with script

Script can be installed using configuration window. Such package must contain at least 2 files: scriptname.desktop and scriptname.py. Desktop file contains properties of script (name, type, etc.) and location of .py file. For examples, see desktop files of scripts in package. If there are any other files needed by script, they should be put in subdirectory to avoid clashes between scripts.

To prepare package, pack files into tarred gzip, for example like that:
tar zcf myscript.tgz myscript.desktop myscript.py myscriptfiles/

Package must have extension .tgz

Disclaimer:
This tool is provided "as is". Author is not responsible for any damages done by this tool.

This project is dedicated to OU.