#125 Unsolicited error message about xdotool at startup

[Mark B]

I booted my Arch box today and got a random popup saying "xdotool is not installed\nit will not function until it is." I searched around Google to find out who/where this is coming from and discovered it is a recent change to Parcellite. Please change the word "it" in the second line to "Parcellite" (and is it that Parcellite will not function at all? Or just loses some functionality? - if just some functionality then state what that is). Also add a full stop after "installed".

[Mark B]

PS: After raising this bug I went and installed xdotool but parcellite still raises that popup when it starts.

[rickyrockrat]

Oh great! I had a user request this 'feature', but I didn't personally test it. The command to find xdotool is /bin/sh -c 'which xdotool'

I do know that I do not get popups with xdotool installed.

Is automatic paste selected? Please try changing this parameter.

Here's the new wording:
xdotool is not installed\n\nParcellite's auto-paste will not function without xdotool.","xdotool Not Installed" );

[Mark B]

When I run "/bin/sh -c 'which xdotool'" on my Arch system I get "/usr/bin/xdotool", i.e. that works correctly but I still get the popup. I turn on auto-paste in preferences then I quit and restart parcellite then I get that popup and auto-paste gets turned off every time.

Regarding the wording, why do you want to say "xdotool not installed" twice?

[rickyrockrat]

If you select auto-paste the second time (w/out a restart), do you still get the popup?

I pasted that from the code, and the second 'xdotool not installed' is for the title of the popup.

I can't duplicate this bug here. I just rename the binary so which can't find it, and it works as expected.

What version of Parcellite are you using?

[rickyrockrat]

One more thing. This popup comes up when parcellite is started? It should only appear when the preferences are up.

[Mark B]

If I click on the auto-paste checkbox in preferences and then select OK then I don't get a popup. If I then bring up preferences again the auto-paste option is still set. However, if I manually quit then start parcellite again I get the pop-up immediately, and the option is de-selected in preferences when I bring it up and check. So I only see the pop-up when parcellite is started, either manually, or at login, and without the preferences window shown. I am using parcellite 1.1.8-1 from the standard community packages on Arch X64. I see that Parcellite updated to that version today when I did a regular Arch update.

[rickyrockrat]

Finally I got it to happen, but still mystified as why it does it.

[rickyrockrat]

Looks like a timing issue. Can you see if SVN 527 (latest rev) fixes the issue for you?

[Mark B]

Yep, SVN 527 fixes the problem.

Note your comment above that "It should only appear when the preferences are up" is incorrect, even with version 527. When parcellite is started and the auto-paste option is set and xdotool is not installed, then the pop-up appears immediately, without the preferences window. Of course that pop-up resets the auto-paste option so you will not see it again, even if parcellite is restarted (unless it is set and then later on xdotool gets removed). I personally don't mind that operation but you should think about whether you want that initial startup to just silently disable the auto-paste option, or whether you are happy with that unsolicited once-off pop-up.

[rickyrockrat]

I killed it at startup, which makes sense to me.