alternatives to conky?

ondoho · 2013-06-04 12:54:04

Hello,
i've been using conky for 2 years and sometimes i'm just fed up with its quirks.
so i'm on a major quest to find sth else to display updating text and images on my desktop (maybe even clickable).
i tried a lot. i like the minimal approach, lightweight and so on.

- gdesklets: a bit heavy and buggy on both distros i tried it on. also out of date? i have no need for a gui.
- adesklets: feels right. is it out of date? anyway i have to learn to use it. not so easy.
- osdsh feels like a predecessor from the stone age ;-) - also it wouldn't compile this time.
- learn python and write sth from scratch?

i thought of making a script that will just recompose the desktop with imagemagick. but if i have a clock, it would have to be almost every second and i think that would take just too many resources.

i even tried osd_cat, some really old X utility - i quite like it actually, but can't get it to stay on the bottom layer. it's always on top of other windows. otherwise it could be used in combo with sth clickable (idesk?).

you see, my ideas are going wild, and before i lose it i rather ask here.

edit: recomposing the root window to show a clock proved to be fairly simple.
once i figured out how to set up cron on arch, i added a job that executes this script once a minute (spot on :00):

#/bin/bash
habak -hi "$( grep "file=" /home/me/.config/nitrogen/bg-saved.cfg | cut -d'=' -f 2 )"  -mf /home/me/.fonts/some.ttf -mh 165 -mc 204,253,255,20 -ht "$( date +%R)"

using nitrogen and habak. this could probably be solved more elegantly with feh.

Last edited by ondoho (2013-06-07 06:29:07)

WorMzy · 2013-06-04 13:02:35

Depends on your requirements. I switched to xmobar a long time ago after giving up with conky; it displays my uptime, CPU load, memory/swap usage, current network transfer speeds, the date and time, my uname, an update monitor, and a custom countdown script (counting down to a certain day), and that's all I really need.

If you want flashy charts and bars and oversized analogue clocks, then xmobar isn't a good choice.

drcouzelis · 2013-06-04 14:13:18

More options:

GKrellM
Dockapps in something like Openbox or Window Maker

But...

ondoho wrote:

i've been using conky for 2 years and sometimes i'm just fed up with its quirks.

If you've been happily using conky for two years and you're leaving it just because of some small quirks, I think your time would be much better spent trying to fix those quirks rather than finding a whole new application and configuration. You might be able to fix the conky quirks pretty easily, either by changing the configuration file or the code.

What conky quirks causes you to not want to use it?

ondoho · 2013-06-04 18:28:44

thanks to both, i'll take a look at xmobar.

drcouzelis wrote:

If you've been happily using conky for two years and you're leaving it just because of some small quirks, I think your time would be much better spent trying to fix those quirks rather than finding a whole new application and configuration. You might be able to fix the conky quirks pretty easily, either by changing the configuration file or the code.
What conky quirks causes you to not want to use it?

ok, one example is if i'm displaying a text file i can't make it align right because conky will align only the first line of the file.
anpther is this: i have a nice big digital clock with a weird font in the middle of my desktop. now i thought, hm, wouldn't it be nice to have it semi-transparent - no can do. i installed compton, set all the argb_visuals, nada. i found two posts that said that xftalpha works only on the default font, no size or font changes possible.
then i thought, might look cool if i put an outline around the digits. no problem with conky? let's see... the same conky also takes care of displaying media information if moc is playing. scrot with clock only:

scrot with moc playing:

(it does look kind of cool actually)
if you can help with these things, i'd be very thankful. i'll be happy to compile myself. but i wouldn't even know how to change the source files, or what in them.
...
i was thinking, maybe lua is the way to go, with conky. i was always a bit suspicious of that because it seemed very slow to me. and here's the reason why:
every lua-conky script i tried was displaying cpu info and because there is some glitch in conky it has to wait a few updates before starting up the lua script, otherwise conky would crash.
....
and that's not the end of it as every conky-fiddler knows.

i'm not leaving conky! just trying to find my way around my computer. i enjoy that minimalistic & retro, yet slightly cluttered look of my desktop ;-)

t0m5k1 · 2013-06-05 07:30:50

please post your config file that produces this.

Lua can be nice IF the script is created correctly otherwise it will slowly consume your memory & yes it does take a couple of seconds to load up but hey I don't mind that as I have a 5 second delay on my conky startup to stop the fonts shrinking in size which then buggers the format of the entire conky display!

Last edited by t0m5k1 (2013-06-05 07:38:20)

ondoho · 2013-06-05 08:20:40

^see, that's what i'm talking about!
no, i don't mind waiting either, but with conky it's all the time: i have to do this workaround because otherwise that feature does not work properly...
i guess i'm like in a marriage after a few years, first serious being-fed-up-ness...
but then, i like my software to be software, not human. conky is very human :-D

anyhow, here's the script in its entireness:

#<conkyrc>
# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window yes
own_window_type override
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_argb_visual no
own_window_argb_value 127
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager

# Use Xft?
use_xft yes
#xftalpha 0.1
xftfont proliferation:size=42 #audimat mono:style=bold:size=180

override_utf8_locale yes

# Update interval in seconds
update_interval 3
# music_player_interval

# This is the number of times Conky will update before quitting.
# Set to zero to run forever.
total_run_times 0

# background no # daemonize

# Use double buffering (reduces flickr, may not work for everyone)
double_buffer yes
# text_buffer_size 2048  #default: 256 bytes

# Minimum size of window (or text area?)
minimum_size 920 50
maximum_width 920

draw_shades no
draw_borders no #window
draw_graph_borders no
draw_outline yes #text

#border_width 1
#border_outer_margin 0
#border_inner_margin 0

#top_name_width 12 # Width for  $top name value (defaults to 15 characters). 
#short_units off
#show_graph_range yes
#show_graph_scale yes
# Default colors and also border colors
default_outline_color 26221F 
#default_shade_color 39332E
default_color 574e4e 
color1 4d4545 

# Text alignment, other possible values are commented
alignment top_left
#alignment top_right
#alignment bottom_left
#alignment bottom_right

# Gap between borders of screen and conky window
gap_x 220
gap_y 160


# Subtract file system buffers from used memory?
no_buffers no

# set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase
#uppercase no

TEXT
${font proliferation:size=42}$color1${goto 180}${voffset 0}${time %A}
${font proliferation:size=140}${goto 220}${time %R}$font
${goto 460}${voffset 3}${time %-d.%-m.%y}

${font proliferation:size=28}${if_running mocp}MOCP-${execi 5 mocp -Q %state}.
${font proliferationless:size=70}${voffset -4}$color${execi 6 mocp -Q %title | fold -s -w 26}$else${if_running mplayer}${if_existing /home/me/.mplayer/mplog}MPLAYER.
${font proliferationless:size=70}${voffset -4}$color${execi 6 tac .mplayer/mplog|grep -m 1 ICY | awk -F'[=|;]' '{print $2}' | sed 's/^.\(.*\).$/\1/' | fold -s -w 29}$endif$endif$endif#

this is without compositing. one step at a time.

thanks for getting involved!

o.

skanky · 2013-06-05 08:39:19

I used to use GKrellM and quite liked it, but it is mainly aimed at remote monioring.

The idea of changing the background image is an interesting one. Would the clock have to have seconds? If it was a minute update, that may not be too intensive.

ondoho · 2013-06-05 21:06:05

skanky wrote:

I used to use GKrellM and quite liked it, but it is mainly aimed at remote monioring.
The idea of changing the background image is an interesting one. Would the clock have to have seconds? If it was a minute update, that may not be too intensive.

true, if the update happens exactly at every full minute. isn't cron able of doing that?
then imagemagick could do miracles... combined with any ol' root windows setter.
also the weather forecast does not need to be updated too often. would leave 2 conkys for system monitoring and media player. or 1.

skanky · 2013-06-05 21:12:46

ondoho wrote:

skanky wrote:
I used to use GKrellM and quite liked it, but it is mainly aimed at remote monioring.
The idea of changing the background image is an interesting one. Would the clock have to have seconds? If it was a minute update, that may not be too intensive.
true, if the update happens exactly at every full minute. isn't cron able of doing that?
then imagemagick could do miracles... combined with any ol' root windows setter.
also the weather forecast does not need to be updated too often. would leave 2 conkys for system monitoring and media player. or 1.

Think cron could do it, but also a loop and sleep. Couldn't say which is better. My satus bar script is a loop with a 5 second sleep, but some updates are less frequent based on a counter.

Forecast updates are rarely useful more frequently than three hours, though hourly may be worthwhile.

ondoho · 2013-06-06 08:18:36

@skanky, what i meant: iirc, cron is able to do things at a certain time, and not, like sleep, every nn interval. which would be helpful if i tell it to update the screen just when the minute changed. of course this could be coded in bash also, but why re-invent the wheel...

skanky · 2013-06-06 08:33:13

ondoho wrote:

@skanky, what i meant: iirc, cron is able to do things at a certain time, and not, like sleep, every nn interval. which would be helpful if i tell it to update the screen just when the minute changed. of course this could be coded in bash also, but why re-invent the wheel...

See what you mean. Depends on how accurate and/or precise you want the clock.

ondoho · 2013-06-06 09:00:33

just had a look at how cron works... so if i tell it in crontab to

*/1 * * * * 	run every minute

, does that mean "at second :00 of every minute"?

skanky · 2013-06-06 09:17:48

ondoho wrote:

just had a look at how cron works... so if i tell it in crontab to
*/1 * * * * 	run every minute
, does that mean "at second :00 of every minute"?

No idea, try it.

ondoho · 2013-06-06 09:56:52

eggzaggly, i did and it does. sorry, stupid question.
so now i have a nice clock onscreen.

coming back to my first post, i would like to ask it again, narrowing it down a little:
i've just started learning python and supposing it goes well and i become über-python in a week, lol, would that open doors to new ways of desktop-adorning?

again my eyes are on gdesklets and adesklets, i think both programs are designed to use self-made python scripts; however both programs also seem to be outdated/orphaned/buggy. does anybody have experience with them?

or could i even start coding python widgets from scratch?

ps: i'm still open to suggestions how to tame my latest conky problem, see posts #4 and #6.

Last edited by ondoho (2013-06-06 09:58:41)

Trilby · 2013-06-06 10:49:43

If you want to learn some programming, I believe cairo has good python bindings. You could use cairo drawing methods and png image displaying to draw on the root (desktop) window.

Antoine · 2013-06-06 12:55:44

WorMzy wrote:

Depends on your requirements. I switched to xmobar a long time ago after giving up with conky; it displays my uptime, CPU load, memory/swap usage, current network transfer speeds, the date and time, my uname, an update monitor, and a custom countdown script (counting down to a certain day), and that's all I really need.

xmobar, sadly, requires 800 megabytes of Haskell stuff, and if that's all one is using Haskell for ...

WorMzy · 2013-06-06 13:09:58

Not at all. The only things the package in the repositories depends on are gmp, libxft, libxinerama, wireless_tools, and libxrandr. The package itself is just 2.84 MiB (which, to be fair, is more than seven times the size of conky).

If you're building it yourself, then you'll need all that Haskell stuff, but the Arch package works fine.

ondoho · 2013-06-06 15:11:37

thanks trilby, i'll keep it in mind. i'm, like, on page 5 of the turorial...

i filed xmobar under "looks a bit too complicated at first glance but let's give it another one sometime".
however it drew my attention to dzen, which seems much closer to my own computer world.

ps: i'm still open to suggestions how to tame my latest conky problem, see posts #4 and #6.

Antoine · 2013-06-08 21:01:42

WorMzy wrote:

Not at all. The only things the package in the repositories depends on are gmp, libxft, libxinerama, wireless_tools, and libxrandr. The package itself is just 2.84 MiB (which, to be fair, is more than seven times the size of conky).
If you're building it yourself, then you'll need all that Haskell stuff, but the Arch package works fine.

My apologies. I was looking at an AUR version -- xmobar-git. I'm trying out the repo package now.

Edit: remove ambiguity.

Last edited by Antoine (2013-06-08 21:02:32)

anilg · 2018-10-12 04:33:48

Cysboard uses CSS and HTML to do this: https://github.com/mike168m/Cysboard

V1del · 2018-10-12 07:14:50

Thanks for the relevant addition, however please pay attention to the dates and don't necrobump 5 year old topics: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … bumping.22

Closing.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-06-04 12:54:04

alternatives to conky?

#2 2013-06-04 13:02:35

Re: alternatives to conky?

#3 2013-06-04 14:13:18

Re: alternatives to conky?

#4 2013-06-04 18:28:44

Re: alternatives to conky?

#5 2013-06-05 07:30:50

Re: alternatives to conky?

#6 2013-06-05 08:20:40

Re: alternatives to conky?

#7 2013-06-05 08:39:19

Re: alternatives to conky?

#8 2013-06-05 21:06:05

Re: alternatives to conky?

#9 2013-06-05 21:12:46

Re: alternatives to conky?

#10 2013-06-06 08:18:36

Re: alternatives to conky?

#11 2013-06-06 08:33:13

Re: alternatives to conky?

#12 2013-06-06 09:00:33

Re: alternatives to conky?

#13 2013-06-06 09:17:48

Re: alternatives to conky?

#14 2013-06-06 09:56:52

Re: alternatives to conky?

#15 2013-06-06 10:49:43

Re: alternatives to conky?

#16 2013-06-06 12:55:44

Re: alternatives to conky?

#17 2013-06-06 13:09:58

Re: alternatives to conky?

#18 2013-06-06 15:11:37

Re: alternatives to conky?

#19 2013-06-08 21:01:42

Re: alternatives to conky?

#20 2018-10-12 04:33:48

Re: alternatives to conky?

#21 2018-10-12 07:14:50

Re: alternatives to conky?

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