WANTED! A conky how to that works

[dibl]

Re: A conky how to that works

HOWEVER, dlbl, your POST INTRIGUES moi!

I did the .conkyrc in home and it is not recognized.

Is it a possibility that the problem is particularly it not being in home?

Is it a possibility that if one could change the file path for "conky" to home that more of the "normal stuff" for conky would work in Ubu?

just a thought, I merely reflect your extensive knowlege!!!

call me woodmoonglowsmoke

Hey Woody-Moon!

There's nothing elaborate or subtle in my conky setup. As mentioned above, I have a "Conky" directory in my home folder, and there I keep the conkeymain text file that does the configuration -- it is just a modified knockoff of someone else's script I found on Ubu forum. Also my weather.sh, conkyweather, and weather.xslt files are in there, and a cheat sheet that has my xoap registration info so I don't forget.

In ~.kde/Autostart is this very elegant script:

#!/bin/bash
sleep 8 &&	# 0 good for Xfce - use 20 to 30 for Gnome
conky -c /home/don/Conky/conkymain &
sleep 8
#end

That's it. I installed the latest .deb packages of conkyforecast and conkyemail, and conky and feh from the repo, and voila!

[irish man]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

In that big post on ubuntuforums there is one conky that is made by VINDSL and someone wrote a how to about it..It explains alot about conky and setups, lua,how to get weather info.One I looked at covers both sides of the monitor right side is computer info. left side is Doppler radar,weather forecast,clock,calender.
I posted a few of my simple ones from a laptop in there,I found a script there to show your info for internet connection and found a way to have a differant icon show for differant connections,not connected,wireless conn and wired.I posted it over there under dlm955.
If you look though those post you will find scripts for just about everything, you will have to alter some commands to work with your computer and reformat for your resolution

[Snowhog]

Re: A conky how to that works

That's it. I installed the latest .deb packages of conkyforecast and conkyemail, and conky and feh from the repo, and voila!

Which, I assume, one can get after adding the conky-companions ppa, as neither of these package are in the standard repositories.
(Ref: Conky SSL Email Python Script & Conky Weather Forecast Python Script)

[dibl]

Re: A conky how to that works

Which, I assume, one can get after adding the conky-companions ppa, as neither of these package are in the standard repositories.
(Ref: Conky SSL Email Python Script & Conky Weather Forecast Python Script)

Yes, although my method (running Debian) was cruder than that -- I just browsed to kaivalagi's ppa repo here and found his latest version .deb for the two scripts that I wanted (email and weather), grabbed 'em, and used dpkg to install them.

EDIT: @woody, you can see the clementine, guayadeque, and rythmbox scripts in there also, if that's what you're looking for.

[irish man]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

Here is a link to info on lua this guys a wizard with it..He doesn't update it often but loads of good info there

http://thepeachyblog.blogspot.com/p/...home-page.html

He post a lot in the ubuntuforums that big post on conky

[dibl]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

I admire very much the skill of folks who can develop such nice scripts. I haven't bothered to attempt it -- I mostly wanted the system monitor functions, and then added the e-mail and weather just to see if I could do it. It was embarrassing how long it took me to figure it out. But, having done the work, it's nice to keep it where I can re-use it when I wish.

[woodsmoke]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

thanks dlbl
woodsmoke

[Snowhog]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

I'm using the information provided by dibl as to getting 'transparency' in conky. The only drawback to the line that does this:

${texeci 1000 feh --bg-scale "/usr/share/wallpapers/Horos/contents/images/1600x900.png"} [an example]

is that it is a static reference. If you want to change your desktop wallpaper, you have to change the line above in the /etc/conky/conky.conf file (and save the change) before conky 'sees' the change. Just slightly a PITA. :P

But this is Linux, and where there is a will, there is more than one way.

I was googling on this issue and came across an elegant solution on the Conky ArchWiki, which is to replace the static reference with (you guessed it) a relative reference that contains the pointer to your current desktop wallpaper. So, here's the 'better' conky.conf entry:

${texeci 1000 feh --bg-scale "`grep 'wallpaper=' ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc | tail --lines=1 | sed 's/wallpaper=//'`"

Now, there is still a glitch, even with this. If you make a desktop wallpaper change, conky doesn't see it until you restart your PC (might just take a log out/ log in from KDM - have not yet tested that), as the file that contains the pointer to the current desktop wallpaper - ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc - doesn't itself get updated with the new desktop wallpaper reference until this occurs. But this approach does mean that you no longer have to edit the conky.conf file every time you change your desktop wallpaper.

[dibl]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

Since KDE has adopted the "separate activities for each desktop", the

${texeci 1000 feh --bg-scale "`grep 'wallpaper=' ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc | tail --lines=1 | sed 's/wallpaper=//'`"

line does not function correctly once you change to separate desktop activities. So, I have had to go back to the static image file citation to have both a transparent conky background and separate wallpapers for my 4 disktops.

[Snowhog]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

I've never/yet gotten my head around the concept of 'activities', but understand having separate wallpapers on the virtual desktops within. But how do you have the single conky.conf file deal with multiple wallpaper images on different desktops?

[dibl]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

Well, apparently the parsing of ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc falls apart when it defines four different wallpapers, because as far as I can tell there is no way for either conky or that file to know which desktop you want your conky on. That's why it can't work.

[Snowhog]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

Yes, I understand that. I got from your prior reply, that because of this, you have to use a static reference in the conky.conf file. But does that mean you have 'transparent' conky only on one of your desktops, or is each of your activity desktops, where you have separate wallpapers, reflected in your conky when you are on those desktops?

[dibl]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

That means that, with the conky startup script in ~/.kde/Autostart, the conky always is initiated on Desktop #1. So my conky script invokes the wallpaper that I use on Desktop #1, and it comes up right.

If for some reason I would turn to one of the other 3 desktops, and then restart conky, it would come up "wrong", i.e. with the Desktop #1 background which would not appear transparent on any of the other 3 desktops.

[Snowhog]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

Yup. Okay. That's what I thought was/would be the case. I don't use activities, and so, all my virtual desktops (four) have the same wallpaper. Just supports the statement that nothing is perfect.

[oshunluvr]

Re: WANTED! A conky how to that works

For whatever it's worth, all I had to do to get conky transparent background was add

own_window_argb_visual yes

Now if I could just get lua_draw_hook_pre main_rings to load.