LazyDeamon 1.1.1
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Have you ever been frustrated by the need to dig through a bunch of folders and/or menus just to use an app you'd quit not two minutes ago? 

Have you ever quit an app only to realize that you still needed it?

Are you too lazy to set up any of the very nice application launching utilities available?

Are you just plain lazy?

Because I know I am!

	And it was for that very reason that I made the LazyDeamon! It will sit and make links to all the GUI applications (i.e: not background or **argv apps. It also ignores the Tracker and DeskBar) in a folder called "recent_apps" in the /boot/home/config/be/ folder and will remove the oldest link when you have 15 links in the folder.

	So, now all you need to do is launch your applications, safe and secure in the knowledge that there will be a link to them only as far as the Be menu!
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Use: 
	
Include the following in your UserBootscript (in /boot/home/config/boot ):

	/boot/<path_to_the_LazyDeamon_folder>/LazyDeamon -n <number> &

or, if you place the LazyDeamon application in your $PATH:

	LazyDeamon -n <number> &

where <number> is the number of links you want to have in the directory. So if you want 20 links (this is what I use) it would be:

	LazyDeamon -n 20 &

I haven't tested this with anything more than 20 links so if you pick something insane like 150 links don't blame me if it chokes and dies, although I don't think it would hurt it any. If you do attempt something crazy let me know how it went, I'd be qurious to see what happens.... Also when you change to a lower number of links (say you started at 20, but decide to go to 10) it may be a couple of app launches before the extra links get removed (for example it will go down to 12 links after you launch one app, then 10 the next time you launch an app). The lower limit for links is 5, setting anything lower will result in getting 5, this is because bad things happened when I used 0 and 1, so I figured 5 would be a good lower limit. The default (if no value is specified) is 15.

	That's it! Now when you boot your computer the LazyDeamon will be chugging away in the background! WooHoo!
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	I hope someone finds this useful, I know I do. Feel free to let me know if you have any problems with this program.*

	I had planned to create a control panel for this (to specify the number of links) but this strikes me as kinda lame given that this is a very simple utility. If you can't handle editing the UserBootscript then don't use this.... Or bug me to make a preferences app, I could be talked into it.
	I would love to have some way of waiting until a "app launched" message was received, but there isn't anything like that in place yet. Maybe in BeOS R5 or R6? I can only hope....

	The next logical utility to create would be a "Recent Folders" app, but I don't think that's gonna happen untill Be gets some kind of Tracker messaging thing set up. If they do, I'll whip up something.....

If you want to see my other projects head on over to my be stuff web page:

http://home.earthlink.net/~esilva/bestuff.html

It's not very slick, but it was a nice project to play with....

Feel free to write me at: esilva@earthlink.net

Thanks!

Ed Silva

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Version history:

1.1.1 for R3 PPC: changed the name of the folder created to 'recent_apps' to match the rest of the stuff in the Be menu (the x86 verson had this from the beginning), added a checking routine to see if there is an older 'Recent_Apps' folder and rename it if so. Cleaned up the source code. Fixed a minor (and harmless) bug.

1.1: Added a bit of code to check the validity of the symlinks in the Recent_Apps folder, and Remove() them if they're bad. (I hated having all those dead links taking up menu space....). Minor clean ups....

1.0: Scrapped control panel plans. Added -h command line arg (dumb command line help). Fiddled with the thread usage....

0.07 beta: Got rid of hard coded paths, used Dominic Giampaolo's getarg stuff to handle the command line args, cleaned up the code quite a bit....

0.06 beta: First working release. Functional, but the code is ugly (hard coded paths, some other nastiness...)

0.05 beta: First release. Didn't work as advertised due to stupid error (I forgot to create the 'Recent_Apps' dir! DOH! My test versions worked because the directory had been created by earlier versions, so I didn't notice....Thanks to John R. Ashmun for pointing it out.)

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*Please note that the author is not responsible for anything that might occur in the use of this program, and if your motherboard suddenly bursts into flame because you looked at my program funny, it ain't my fault. (isn't this itty bity type annoying?)
