Even if there isn't a cli interface. I would like to be able to launch it/ kill it from command line.
Ubuntu – way to determine how to launch any program from the command line
command line
Related Solutions
Here are a few options.
Devil's Pie
wmctrl
You can make a script to move to the desired workspace and then launch your app (source):
#!/bin/bash
wmctrl -s 1
firefox --new-tab $@ &
Or you could launch your app and then move it. I think something like this would work:
#!/bin/bash
thunderbird &
wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -t 1
# if thunderbird takes a while to launch, you may need to find the window yourself:
#wmctrl -r `wmctrl -l | grep [t]hunderbird | cut -f1` -t 1
Compiz Place plugin
You can enable and configure this if you install compizconfig-settings-manager .
Allows you to set fixed positions for windows with specific titles.
FYI, previously I used wmctrl in Gnome. Some of its features don't work for me in 11.04 w/ Unity, but should be good in 9.04. Not sure about KDE though.
A wide variety of documents can be converted to ebook (epub, mobi, ...) using ebook-convert which is part of the calibre package.
For example, as long as input is a supported format, an epub can be created with the command:
ebook-convert input output.epub
Or, if you use kindles:
ebook-convert input output.mobi
Some input formats include: LIT, MOBI, AZW, EPUB, AZW3, FB2, DOCX, HTML, PRC, ODT, RTF, PDB, TXT, PDF.
If the input file is a PDF, then one may want to add an option:
ebook-convert --enable-heuristics input.pdf output.epub
Calibre may be available from your package manager but it often helps to install the latest version which is available here.
Authoring a book
As an alternative to calibre, OpenOffice/LibreOffice offers an extension, Writer2ePub, to claims to be able to create "well formatted, easy readable ePub" files with a single click.
The Writer2ePub extension can be downloaded from here.
Best Answer
Short Version:
Find the Exec command for your app by grepping the applications directory
Start the app
Kill it by hitting Ctrl+C
First, find out where your application is. A few directories are in an environment variable
$PATH, so that you don't have to type the whole directory.One way to find your app is to open the Menu Editor (right click on the Applications Menu and select Edit Menus) and find the app's command.
The calculator, for example is
gcalctoolat/usr/bin/gcalctool(use thewhereiscommand to find the exact path of an app). Since/usr/binis in the PATH variable (typeecho $PATH), you can run it in your terminal by typinggcalctool.It's now running in the foreground. You can pause it by pressing Ctrl+Z, resume it in the background by typing
bg,or resume it in the foreground by typingfg. You can also usefgto raise an app to the foreground.If you do this with multiple apps, you can use
jobsto get a numbered list of all of them, and then use, for example,fg 3to raise one of them.An App that is in the foreground can be killed with Ctrl+C or Ctrl+\ (if it doesn't react to the former).
A universal way to find your app is to open the File Browser, go to Filesystem → usr → share → applications and to find your app there.
You'll see a bunch of
.desktopfiles, which you can drag into a Text Editor (or usecat) to read. This is a piece of the Calculators .desktop file:The Exec entry is what you're interested in here. It's the same you would see if you went to the Menu Editor, just quicker. You can grep the files to search them for your app, if you can't find it.
If the app doesn't have a .desktop file in the applications directory, you have to know it's command of course. Use TAB to get suggestions from just a few letters. Press tab, tab, y to get a huge list of every application.