Notices

I'm really, really trying to understand Powerlaunch, so I can finally (maybe) upgrade to ITOS2008, but this app completely baffles me.

What, e.g. is the meaning of the screenshots that can be found on this page? Is that a visual configuration tool or something else?

I gladly admit that the documentation "provided" with Powerlaunch is beyond even incomprehensible to me, so could someone tell me how I can implement softpoweroff with the keypress that I prefer (shortkeypress on powerkey)? I do not understand the documentation. Frankly, I can't even understand why that text is labeled "documentation".

And then there's the sample config files. Lets forget for the moment that the text accompanying them is AFAIC complete gibberish -- WTF do I even do with them? Rename them? Copy them somewhere? Chant to them?

I would like to use Powerlaunch. Heck, anything not made by Nokia can only be an improvement, but let's face it, a program that comes with this warning -- "It is highly recommended that you are logged in via ssh when installing powerlaunch for the first time, so if something goes wrong, you can kill the program at any time. Warning: It is possible to edit the config file in such a way to make it impossible to close the program." -- isn't exactly trust-inspiring.

hey karel...ive been running it for a while....solely for the ability to have soft power off...thats all...no other reason....or atleast none that i can remember.....if someone would possibly come up with some examples...and post them here ...that would well be awesome...

As I recall, it's not impossible to find the files that are supposed to be edited to configure Powerlaunch. I found them. I would have thought that someone clever could have actually used them. I'm not using Powerlaunch now, because of the tapdancing one has to do to make it work with the screen-rotating program.

Bump? (although slightly despairingly so)

dont feel so bad...i think benson is the only one who has figured it all out...well we seem to have some heavy hitters attention...ga,bunanson,want to weigh in....i had a local whizkid look at it,....this was his explanationwell its basically designed so you can customize specialty keys for different situations in your maeamo thing, such as what happens when a certain key is hit in a certain mode
its one of the most exciting ways to program cause its more organized
course he dont have a n8xx device...but he told me that hed help do up a sample script...

I don't get it. The program is announced as an easy way to circumvent Nokia's f*ckup with systemui. As such, it's arguably an enduser tool. OTOH, the unspeakably arcane "explanations" (that appear to assume pre-existing knowledge of at least advanced string theory) put it squarely in developer land. Yet no developer seems to have done anything with it sofar.

The premade config files could be a good thing, were it not for the fact that one of them just mimicks the standard systemui layout (which is so NOT what I want; I've spent time to reconfigure mce.ini to behave it the way I want it) and the rest of those files either do stuff I have no idea about (I dare you to read the explanation about tklock.conf and understand precisely what it does) or are completely useless to me (the N810 one).

Well, I tried to figure it out, but gave up. It would be nice to get a coherent explanation.

i asked some other people to take a look at it...they have no tablet s...so it wont help...

I've never used or even looked at Powerlaunch before, but according to the "Powerlaunch" section on the "Powerlaunch: Documentation" page, the software looks for its configuration files--both .conf and .glade--in "/home/user/.powerlaunch" and "/etc/powerlaunch", in that order. Also, by default, the file for which it looks is "powerlaunch.conf". There's an implication that there's a way to get fancy and specify either alternate or additional configuration files, but I didn't notice how to do that at a glance.

Well... I used it, before I went all Diablo-happy. I knew I'd go back at some point, but wanted to try out the new improved mce.

The good news: It's not necessary with Diablo, if you're lucky. (I was, the General wasn't, and I think a couple of others may have reported experience one way or the other...) If all you want is softpoweroff, I think that's largely attainable by editing /etc/mce/mce.ini. (I must warn you that there's a warning in mce.ini similar to the one in powerlaunch about making it impossible to shut down... but if you're careful with either program, it's pretty straightforward.)

The bad news: I am currently without a powerlaunch install to give you any guidance from. (Yes, most all of my accurate reliable guidance comes from looking at existing files, not from memory.) Moreover, I have never messed with powerlaunch on Diablo (final release or pseuDiablo), so I don't know what's different. I don't have any (pseu)Diablo install at the moment. (I begin to despise Patriot SD cards, though I'm not sure the card is defective, or I just crash/freeze + hard reboot too often.) So I can't even give you particularly great help with the mce.ini approach either.

But, here's from memory:

• Get root, and edit /etc/systemui/systemui.xml
  This isn't at all necessary, but it's helpful to uncomment the whole section there, or at least the softpoweroff and reboot entries. This adds those items to the normal menu.
• As root, edit /etc/mce/mce.ini
  This is pretty clearly documented with comments. You'll want to find the short powerkey press option, and change it to softpoweroff. You may want to change any of the other powerkey press options as well; take heed the warning, of course. Finally, you may want to change the softpoweroff behavior, too.
• Reboot to make everything take effect.
  This is unnecessary and really a bad idea, but it's easier than trying to remember:
  
  Code:

  for STUFF in `remember stuff NOW` ; do
          /etc/init.d/$STUFF restart
  done

  to restart mce and systemui.

IIRC, my actual working config involved double-press power for softpoweroff, short-press for menu, and long-press for poweroff; not going to offline mode, and restoring offline status when leaving. (I think there should be another option to keep online mode when a BT headset is in use, but there isn't, and I haven't gotten to filing a feature request in Bugzilla yet...)

If the systemui menu fails to come up sometimes, you can do a long- or medium-press (not sure) on the powerkey, then try it again.