Linux Desktop Hacks

Read Yahoo! Mail from Any Email Client #56

Chapter 8, Desktop Programs

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177

HACK

Now let’s get back to the “sort of” part of the equation. First you start

ooffice -quickstart manually, or have it launched automatically when you

start your window manager or desktop

[Hack #72]. Then you start up your

OpenOffice.org productivity applications, do a little work, and then close

the applications.

As soon as you close the last OpenOffice.org productivity application, the

background quickstart process automatically exits, too. Unlike the methods

employed by oooqs, quickstart interprets the closing of the last application as

an indication that you’re done with OpenOffice.org for the day. So, the next

time you open the word processor, it’s back to “trip to Starbucks” time

again. (Well, not necessarily. If you ran the OpenOffice.org application

recently, much of it might still be in memory, and it will start quickly.)

Respawn Trick to the Rescue

Here’s where the respawn method I describe later in “Don’t Let Elvis Leave

the Building”

[Hack #73] comes in really handy. Log in as root, start up your

favorite editor, and create a file called /usr/local/bin/oostay. Type the follow-

ing text into the file:

#!/bin/bash

# Restart ooffice -quickstart every time it exits

instances=`ps ax | grep -e -quickstart | grep -v grep | wc -l`

if [ $instances == 0 ]; then

while true; do ooffice -quickstart ; done

else

exit 1

fi

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