cron-gui-launcher

A simple Bash script, that is able to launch any GUI application as Cron job within Ubuntu.

Input Parameters

• $1 - list of commands to be executed.

• $2 - short description of the job that will be appended to the log file name.

  Note about the logging: The script will create a log file located in /tmp, which name shall be $USER-git-cron-launcher-$DESCRIPTION.log. Where as $DESCRIPTION will be assigned the value of the input variable $2, thus if you wish you can make some job's log file unique.

• $3 - timeout in minutes, when the user is not logged in.

How it works?

1. Initially the script attempts to get the current user's $DISPLAY number. For this purpose it uses the following method:

   w $(id -un) | awk 'NF > 7 && $2 ~ /tty[0-9]+/ {print $3; exit}'

   • The $DISPLAY variable is unset while the user is not logged in. In this case the scipt sleep's for a while and then makes a new attept.
   • This action is repeated until the $DISPLAY variable is set, then its value is saved and exported.

Supported/Tested Desktop Environments

unity | gnome | gnome-classic 	[Ubuntu Unity] [Ubuntu Gnome] [Gnome Classic] [Open Box]
lxde				[Lubuntu] [Lubuntu Netbook] [LXDE]
kde				[Kubuntu] [KDE Plasma]
xfce | xfce4			[Xubuntu] [XFCE] [XFCE4]
x-cinnamon			[Cinnamon] [Cinnamon2d]
mate 				[MATE] [Open Box]