So, in the image attached you can see I have a pile of widgets set up to give me a "one look" access to system status information. I tend to monitor this regularly as my machine is often being pushed very hard and I work with a lot of very large files that get moved around a lot both locally and via networking. Long renders using compute (cuda on both GPUs and the CPU simultaneously) often results in the computer getting very hot, so I watch thermals and check for throttling, look for bottlenecks, and so on. Linux and Plasma can expose a reasonable amount of information and the widgets are nice and clean.
The problem is, they are huge. This is the smallest I can get them. There is also a ton of redundant information, and far too much long text that seems impossible to change without hacking the widget or system. Some of the graphing layouts look cool, but they are somewhat useless (the the GPU circle one on the bottom left). I would prefer to have the reporting or labeling done differently on some of the things, but they are not possible in the widget settings. Ideally the widget would be one side bar about 2/3rds the width of one bar as seen in my screen cap.
The other thing is, they are often covered by apps. I want a sidebar that acts like a task bar so that when an app opens it is "kicked to the side" or when its maximized, it is limited to the side in the same way its limited to the top of the task bar, so that it is neither covered, nor covering anything like the standard "always on top". I have dual screens, so I do not mind sacrificing the real estate.
That leave me with looking for an alternative, or hacking something together on my own. I have been told about Conky and it seems to be a good starting point. But it is not for KDE specifically, and it does not have the taskbar's "prevent-being-covered-when-an-app-is-maximized" feature. This feature would save me a lot of time not fiddling with windows on the desktop. A lot of time.
So long story short, are there alternatives to Conky that already do what I am seeking? I do not want to re-invent the wheel if its already been invented. If not, then I am going to need to discover what the best place to learn about widget making and integration with the plasma desktop is.
The problem is, they are huge. This is the smallest I can get them. There is also a ton of redundant information, and far too much long text that seems impossible to change without hacking the widget or system. Some of the graphing layouts look cool, but they are somewhat useless (the the GPU circle one on the bottom left). I would prefer to have the reporting or labeling done differently on some of the things, but they are not possible in the widget settings. Ideally the widget would be one side bar about 2/3rds the width of one bar as seen in my screen cap.
The other thing is, they are often covered by apps. I want a sidebar that acts like a task bar so that when an app opens it is "kicked to the side" or when its maximized, it is limited to the side in the same way its limited to the top of the task bar, so that it is neither covered, nor covering anything like the standard "always on top". I have dual screens, so I do not mind sacrificing the real estate.
That leave me with looking for an alternative, or hacking something together on my own. I have been told about Conky and it seems to be a good starting point. But it is not for KDE specifically, and it does not have the taskbar's "prevent-being-covered-when-an-app-is-maximized" feature. This feature would save me a lot of time not fiddling with windows on the desktop. A lot of time.
So long story short, are there alternatives to Conky that already do what I am seeking? I do not want to re-invent the wheel if its already been invented. If not, then I am going to need to discover what the best place to learn about widget making and integration with the plasma desktop is.
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