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I have a startup script that opens some programs in each workspace. I want to do some things in the first workspace before it continues opening the programs in the next workspaces. How can I prompt to continue? I've tried using gnome-terminal -e "bash -c \"read -s -p 'Press enter to continue...'\"" but it doesn't stop, the script continues executing even though I haven't used & to move the process to background.

wmctrl -n 2
sleep 2
wmctrl -s 0
sleep 1
if command -v "firefox" > /dev/null 2>&1; then
    firefox  &
fi
gnome-terminal -e "bash -c \"read -n1 -sp 'Press enter to continue...'\""
# sleep 30
wmctrl -s 1
sleep 1
if command -v "firefox" > /dev/null 2>&1; then
    firefox --new-window &
fi
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    Why not make that prompt in the terminal that is already running that script? Or do you want a dialog box of some sort to appear anywhere?
    – thrig
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 14:53
  • It doesn't appear when the script is executed as a startup application so I have to find an alternative.
    – user96101
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 15:05
  • Is your staturtup script running as your user? because if it's running as root you have no control over it whatsoever while running
    – Dalvenjia
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 17:01

1 Answer 1

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I have no idea about the gnome-terminal, but if I start my xfce4-terminal from an already running terminal, it immediately forks itself into a standalone process, such that control can be returned to the calling shell, i.e. the previous shell will accept new commands while the new one is running as well.

I believe the gnome-terminal behaves the same way, which is why your script doesn't seem to stop-and-wait.

You could use the standard xterm instead, which does not fork itself and thus blocks the calling script. It doesn't look as pretty, but it'll do as a simple block-alert.

You may also have a look at gxmessage, xmessage or zenity.

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  • It works perfectly with xterm -e "bash -c \"read -n1 -sp 'Press enter to continue...'\"". I tried the rest of options and they all work too. You could add the command to complete the answer. if command -v "zenity" > /dev/null 2>&1; then zenity --question --text "Open workspaces" if [ $? = 1 ]; then exit fi else echo "Install zenity" fi
    – user96101
    Commented Apr 8, 2017 at 8:28

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