[xterm] Edit appearance and store preferences

It's possible to edit the xterm console appearance and permanently store the changes by creating or editing the ~/.Xresources file. You can find the full list of settings on the man page, here are some useful ones:

XTerm*Background: white
XTerm*Foreground: black
XTerm*geometry: 140x45

The code above will set the default window size to 140x45 and display black characters on white background.

To apply the settings to all future xterm consoles, even after a reboot, just run once:

xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

and finally restart xterm

[Kodi] Crash on exit bug fix

I was trying out Kodi, specifically the Kodibuntu version they provide, aka: Kodi installed on a quite barebone LUbuntu, and I must say I'm really impressed. Outputting 5.1 audio over SPDIF and watching HD movies is made very easy and works out of the box.

There is however one interesting bug that comes in various forms and basically causes Kodi to crash or freeze everytime you try to quit it.

The fix is very simple as the issue seems to be caused by the Version check addon; disabling it is sufficient to solve the problem.

[LXDE] LUbuntu change clock format

Again, out of all the nice to have stuff people left out of LXDE, an easy way to edit the clock date and time format is missing.

Luckily, the tinkering required is minimal. Right click on the clock and select "Digital Clock" Settings, then enter the desired format in the Clock Format section.

For example:

%a %d %b %R

would result in:

[3 letters day name] [day number] [3 letters month name] [hours:minutes in 24 hours format]

eg:

Sat 09 Apr 16:17

[LXDE] LUbuntu change keyboard shortcuts

LXDE is extremely lightweight, maybe a bit too much, in the sense that they left out some user-friendly portions such as an easy graphical way to edit keyboard shortcuts.

You can still do it with a bit of tinkering, by editing the ~//.config/openbox/lxde-rc.xml file.

Remember that this syntax applies:

C = CTRL key
S = SHIFT key
A = ALT key
W = Windows key

[LXDE] LUbuntu auto num lock on boot

If you experience issues with the keyboard num lock not being automatically activated at boot or after lock screen wakeup in LXDE, try this:

- install numlockx:

sudo apt-get install numlockx

- edit /etc/xdg/lubuntu/lxdm/lxdm.conf and find numlock line then remove the comment and enable it:

numlock=1

- edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf and add this line:

greeter-setup-script=/usr/bin/numlockx on

[LXDE] Lock screen in LUbuntu via shortcut

LUbuntu users may encounter a bug that prevents them from locking the screen either from command line or keyboard shortcut.

In my case, solving it was quite easy:

First install lxlock and light-locker, you might already have them:

sudo apt-get install lxlock light-locker

Then edit ~//.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml and modify or add the lockscreen section:

  <!-- Lock the screen on W + L-->  
  <keybind key="W-L">  
   <action name="Execute">  
    <command>lxlock</command>  
   </action>  
 </keybind>  

Finally restart openbox:

openbox --restart

[Avaloq] Define task parameters to be used only in the reports

When defining a task in Avaloq, it's possible to use the pseudo keyword to mark parameters that should not be passed to the underlying task, but should still be accessible from the REP DTM sources.

This is useful if their purpose is to enhance the report functionality but they do not provide meaningful input for the task procedure itself.

They are delcared as:

i_[param_name]  pseudo  [param_type] 

eg:

i_my_param  pseudo  number

And can then be accessed in the REP DTM like any other task parameter:

task_exec.param("my_param").nr_val