tkSort's Graphical User Interface


The Command Center

The command center has several entry fields which allow you to sort multiple files, on different columns, which are delimited by a separator. The label for the Filename entry is actually button that when pressed, yields a file selection dialog, illustrated below:

The File Selection Dialog can be used multiple times because the selected files are appended to the Filename entries. This allows you to use tkSort to merge files located in different directories, without typing the paths and filenames in by hand.

Below the Filename, Separator, and Column entries is Wizard Help. When the mouse is over any part of the tkSort Interface, look at the Wizard help label for a short explanation of what role it plays in the Application. Having the Wizard Help appear in the same place in the interface helps the user easily identify the help message, and avoids those annoying pop-ups which follow you around. The following Wizard Help message appears when the user has the mouse over the Log Window:

Below the entry widgets are the applications default Command Line Option radio buttons. If you are a beginner and do not know what the options mean, place the mouse over the option you want to learn about and read the Wizard Help message. This provides educational support by re-enforcing definitions of the Command Line Options so that later they can be used more effectively. Expert users also can reference this Wizard Help to make sure they are using the correct option, and not getting it confused with options from a different command. The options which appear in the interface are customizable too. For more information on how to add more Command Line Options to the Command Center, see the section Customizing the Options File.


The Toolbar

The Toolbar provides access to several useful commands which are summarized in the table below:

Execute the sort command

Reset tkSort Command Center entries.

Clear the Log Window contents.

Copy tkSort Log Window to clipboard.

View the Help documentation.

Exit tkSort.


The Log Window

The Log Window displays the output of the sort command, as illustrated in the figure below.

The scrollbars make viewing your output a lot easier. Gone are the days of piping your output to a pager, like more, and viewing a screen at a time. Warning messages are also displayed in the Log Window with a little Caution Sign next to them. The figure below is an example:

These messages are erased when the next command is run or when the Clear button is pressed. Note that output from a previous sort command is not cleared unless the Clear button is pressed.


The Selection

Once a command has been executed successfully, the corresponding sort syntax is displayed in this widget. The figure below shows the syntax of a successful sort command.

Displaying the syntax in this widget makes using the command in other applications besides tkSort easier. The easiest way to copy the command to the X-Window System Selection is by clicking on the clipboard button to the right of the command display

Once the text in the widget is highlighted, as shown below,

the string can be pasted in another application by pressing the second mouse button.


Index