Ubuntu: A simple way to create boot messages dialog box for the console

I need to create a customised version of Ubuntu LiveCD to install our company software onto rackmount servers. The product requires simple text input and messages dialogs after the boot process. The obvious solution is to use the Linux tool, dialog, for this purpose and run the dialog script in /etc/rc.local.

However, the dialog doesn’t appear to the console screen. This is because the init process (which starts the rc scripts) sends the output to different terminal which ends up in /var/log/boot.log

In order to make sure you dialog script is interacting with the actual console display, make sure the dialog command is outputting to /dev/console. For example:

dialog --title "Check ID" --inputbox 
       "Please type in your ID" 12 50 > /dev/console 2>id

New release of Highcharts extension supports Highcharts 3.0

A new version of Highcharts extension (ver 2.4.0) for Sencha ExtJs 4 and Touch 2 is released which supports the latest release of Highcharts 3.0 and fixes the compatibility issues with ExtJs 4.2 and Touch 2.1.1.
Here are the details of the latest changes:

ExtJs 3 & 4 TreeGrid Component: adding grid line style and highlighting expanded nodes/rows

ExtJs 3 TreeGrid style

In ExtJs 3, a default TreeGrid has no cell grid lines. This article demonstrates how to improve the style and fix the hidden column alignment. The following is a ExtJs 3 TreeGrid screenshot with default style showing network usages:

News/Events/Stocks Ticker for ExtJs 4

Ticker class for ExtJs 4 creates a messages scrolling component that can move horizontally from left to right or vice versa, or even vertically moving from top to bottom or vice versa. This component can be used as a stocks, news or events ticker. The class offers a number of flexibilities and features. Here are some of them:

Highcharts selection event callback: exposing mouse event clientX & clientY info

I have been manually doing this change in my own versions of Highcharts for couple years and it is not been done in the latest version (pre 3.0). This minor feature probably too trivial to consider. However, after recent discussion with Torsein, he thinks this is a good idea and it will be put in Highcharts 3.0 code base.

[Updated] ExtJs 4.1.1: Using multiple fields inside a row editor cell for editing large values

Awhile ago, I have written on how to treat a row editor field with multiple form fields. However, the solution wasn’t working nicely (and also quite buggy) with the latest ExtJs 4.1.1. This post shows you a working example with row update.

How to scale complex SVG image with CompositeSprite in ExtJs 4.1

Suppose you have created a complex SVG image using Ext.draw.CompositeSprite which contains a group of Sprite objects with the same group id. To translate the whole set from one position to another is easy. However, extra care is needed if you want to scale a CompositeSprite object.

Highcharts extension (update) – Sencha style API & tutorial documentation

Learning Highcharts book – online demos

The kindle version for “Learning Highcharts” is out now. Here is also the link for the online demos of all the examples from the book.

StoreMenu for ExtJs 4 – a dynamic toolbar menus created from the Store

I have been maintaining and enhancing StoreMenu for ExtJs 3 but never got the time to update the extension for ExtJs 4. Here it is, a complete rewrite and native implementation for ExtJs 4.

Click here for tutorial and API documentation in Sencha style.

For online demo, click here