adding Vim icon-adding any icons--SOLVED

[brock]

Haven't seen this one yet.  Anyone know how I can make an icon opening Vim?  I'd like it in my taskbar.

[Triarius Fidelis]

Do you use Xfce or what

[brock]

Oh wow I'm gonna have to get used to knowing the info that others need to know in order to help me.  Let's see, I use Xfce.  I'm running the latest release of Vector, I'm on a Compaq Presario 1800 Laptop.  About 190 megs of RAM.

[GrannyGeek]

If you want this icon by itself in the "quicklaunch" area, right-click on a blank area of the Panel and select Add New Item, Launcher. Give it a name and type in the executable's name in the Command box. It's /usr/bin/vim, but since /usr/bin is in your path, just
vim
should be enough.

In the box above the Command, add the path to an icon of your choice. You can find icons in /usr/share/pixmaps and /usr/share/icons. Navigate to them by clicking on the folder to the right of the box for the icon path. You can add a description of the program if you want. I usually omit that. Click on Close and you should now have a launcher in your Panel-taskbar.

If you want to add it to a group (for example, the launcher for the Mousepad text editor that's in the Panel by default), right-click on the icon and select Properties. Click on the plus sign and do the same things as I just described. The program listed at the top is what appears on the Panel. You access the others by clicking on the little up arrow to the right of the Panel icon. You can rearrange the order in which programs appear by highlighting the program you want to move and clicking on the up and down arrows in the program list for the launcher. Click Close and you're done.

Does this answer your question?
--GrannyGeek

[brock]

Sounds like it should.  I'll post back with an answer.  Thank you.

[brock]

OK.  Worked perfectly.  Now the get-pickys.  It opens an ugly, small, white xterm window.  I've been spoiled with the big, half-screen, transparent Terminal window.  So is it possible to change it to that or do I live with it?  And should it only open a terminal window or should it activate vim as well.  Thanks by the way, for the quick response.

Post modified:

     Here's what I did for the people as new as me.  Everything grannygeek suggested worked perfectly.  One special note: the path to the program that you type in aka 'command' needs to be only "vim".  If you type in usr/bin/vim you will get a terminal window.  But if you type in just vim then you will get a terminal window that is already running vim.  A small detail but nice to me.  I also downloaded an official Vim icon from here:

http://www.vim.org/logos.php

     so now I have a Vim icon sitting in my task bar.  Another small detail, but again, it makes for a nice personal touch for me.  To each his own.   So the only thing to make this perfect is to figure out how to make the window look like my terminal window; a bit larger and transparent.  Thanks GG for the assistance!

[toothandnail]

If you specify the launcher command as below:

Code:

terminal -e vim

you should get Vim opening in your standard terminal window. You can also alter the settings for the terminal with other command line switches - try entering 'terminal --help | more' (without the quotes) from a command line to see what the options are.

paul.

[brock]

This causes a small window to open first then opens up the big, transparent vim window.  I tried a bunch of switches but couldn't get the small window to disappear after it activated the big window.  I'm closer!!!

[toothandnail]

This causes a small window to open first then opens up the big, transparent vim window.  I tried a bunch of switches but couldn't get the small window to disappear after it activated the big window.  I'm closer!!!

Look at the launcher definition - I bet you've got 'run in terminal' ticked. Disable that and you should get just the Vim window.

paul.

[brock]

He shoots-he SCOOOOOOOORES!  A perfect solution, folks.  Yes, the "run in terminal" was checked.  Now its not and its doing exactly what I wanted.  Thank you GrannyGeek and toothandnail for the accurate, patient help.  Two thumbs way up....