Main index > About new desklets > torsmo

By syfou (Core Developer & Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 00:54:51 2005: torsmo.

On remote forums. two active members of this community, DrWoland and CitizenX, were talking:

DrWoland wrote:

CitizenX wrote:


Very nice, DrWoland....what other modules are going into there? I'd love to have drop down functionality with the scripts my torsmos run...my desktop's full enough as it is. ;)

Drop down functionality would probably not be best done under the adesklet engine. It's possible, but it would be VERY painful.


Somebody would care to explain what exactly drop down functionality means in this context? I never tried out torsmo myself, and I fail to understand this conversation.... Just curious.

By DrWoland (Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 00:59:01 2005: Re: torsmo.

syfou wrote:

On remote forums. two active members of this community, DrWoland and CitizenX, were talking:

DrWoland wrote:

CitizenX wrote:


Very nice, DrWoland....what other modules are going into there? I'd love to have drop down functionality with the scripts my torsmos run...my desktop's full enough as it is. ;)

Drop down functionality would probably not be best done under the adesklet engine. It's possible, but it would be VERY painful.


Somebody would care to explain what exactly drop down functionality means in this context? I never tried out torsmo myself, and I fail to understant this conversation.... Just curious.


He's saying Torsmo takes up a lot of space on his screen since he probably uses it to render log files onto his desktop, as well as stats, so instead of having icons, he'd like to have drop down menus in modubar. I think I might tackle that next week during Spring Break because it seems a bit more plausible now that I think about it. It'd be hard, but I think I can manage ;)

Edit: Speaking of torsmo, I'm planning to write a desklet using the statgrab module which would look like torsmo and probably surpass it, despite using a bit more memory. It will also be better at handling multiple instance, due to being run through the adesklets engine, which by the way, is the best thing to happen since sliced bread :)

By syfou (Core Developer & Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 01:28:52 2005, last edited on Thu Mar 17 02:31:03 2005.

DrWoland wrote:


He'd like to have drop down menus in modubar. I think I might tackle that next week during Spring Break because it seems a bit more plausible now that I think about it. It'd be hard, but I think I can manage.

I see. adesklets is far from appropriate for any GUI programming... If it's possible, but certainly not a good idea, because a single window, always on the bottom does not have the right input focus anyway. If you want to do this, at the expense of a few dependencies more, you can use such modules as TkInter. It does an excellent job at GUI programming, while being light an very easy to use.

DrWoland wrote:


Speaking of torsmo, I'm planning to write a desklet using the statgrab module which would look like torsmo and probably surpass it, despite using a bit more memory. It will also be better at handling multiple instance, due to being run through the adesklets engine

That would also be very nice. Try not to step on ZeroDivide "territory" to much though: he is taking is time to do a good job on the monitors, and it would probably not be fun for him to already see "copycats" of this work... But Torsmo-like system statistics would be fairly distinct anyway. :-)

By DrWoland (Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 01:56:36 2005.

syfou wrote:

DrWoland wrote:


He'd like to have drop down menus in modubar. I think I might tackle that next week during Spring Break because it seems a bit more plausible now that I think about it. It'd be hard, but I think I can manage.

I see. adesklets is far from appropriate for any GUI programming... If it's possible, but certainly not a dood idea, because a single window, always on the bottom does not have the right input focus anyway. If you want to do this, at the expense of a few dependencies more, you can use such modules as TkInter. It does an excellent job at GUI programming, while being light an very easy to use.

DrWoland wrote:


Speaking of torsmo, I'm planning to write a desklet using the statgrab module which would look like torsmo and probably surpass it, despite using a bit more memory. It will also be better at handling multiple instance, due to being run through the adesklets engine

That would also be very nice. Try not to step on ZeroDivide "territory" to much though: he is taking is time to do a good job on the monitors, and it would probably not be fun for him to already see "copycats" of this work... But Torsmo-like system statistics would be fairly distinct anyway. :-)


I'll talk to him about maybe combining our code. I like his graphical work. I think I'll just program a modular way of displaying his monitors.

By CitizenX (Themer / Graphic Artist), on Thu Mar 17 02:25:10 2005.

the reason i use torsmo is because its extremely extensible...it'll let you run any script inside it because it just displays the results on the screen. I worked out a portage tracker using genlop and bash and I have a modified ps command displaying the top 9 processes by cpu usage. I like the ability of torsmo to run shell commands ....I know python does this (yes even I know that much)...but I dont know how easily that can be integrated into the adesklet engine.

Heres a 5 min mockup of what I'm visualizing
http://home.comcast.net/~iibagod/psmonitoridea.png

...but I think this probably should be a separate topic ;)

It would be nice to clear up some space...drop down functionality was one idea...but since xmms_bar has an autohide, it could be integrated to work on another desklet. Here I'm thinking of a small icon (arrow or something...maybe just a really nice icon) that you could pass your mouse over and the status display would draw on your screen.

By kolmis (User), on Thu Mar 17 14:42:09 2005.

CitizenX wrote:

I worked out a portage tracker using genlop and bash and I have a modified ps command displaying the top 9 processes by cpu usage.


Hi !

I noticed your portage tracker a few days ago while browsing the lynucs.org screenshot archive and now that I know it's your work, I just have to ask: would you mind sharing that one ? ;)

By DrWoland (Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 14:55:42 2005, last edited on Fri Mar 18 00:14:13 2005.

CitizenX wrote:

the reason i use torsmo is because its extremely extensible...it'll let you run any script inside it because it just displays the results on the screen. I worked out a portage tracker using genlop and bash and I have a modified ps command displaying the top 9 processes by cpu usage. I like the ability of torsmo to run shell commands ....I know python does this (yes even I know that much)...but I dont know how easily that can be integrated into the adesklet engine.

Heres a 5 min mockup of what I'm visualizing
http://home.comcast.net/~iibagod/psmonitoridea.png

...but I think this probably should be a separate topic ;)

It would be nice to clear up some space...drop down functionality was one idea...but since xmms_bar has an autohide, it could be integrated to work on another desklet. Here I'm thinking of a small icon (arrow or something...maybe just a really nice icon) that you could pass your mouse over and the status display would draw on your screen.


CitizenX, I think ZeroDivide and I are going to put our heads together to destroy Torsmo :) Here's a list of features I just sent him, so hold on to your pants:

aside: I <3 torsmo :)

Quote:


Here's what I'm looking at:
The overarching adesklet:
-Transparency and 2color gradient fill of the background. (image fill to come later, since I don't know right now how to tile an image, although I have an idea, and it's unnecessary for an initial release)
-border of varying thickness with a posibility of a 3d effect broder.

The modules:
-CPU
-RAM
-Swap
-Harddrive space
-Kernel/hostname/hosttype
-Time
-A custom text header/separator (leaving text blank just creates an empty space)
-A custom image separator (just something that would load a picture)
-Bars that can be set to have a different border color and fill color.
-Text with customizeable font, size, color, opacity, and a shadow option.
-An optional icon for each monitor, like the one you have.

Things I'd like to eventually have done, either by me or by you:
-Image background - fully your territory
-Image borders - again, fully yours.
-Full themeability - ditto
-Network activity (may be in initial release if I figure it out, I just haven't looked at that part of statgrab.)
-Log reader
-Port of the weather applet.
-Port of the mail checker applet


We may look into making it hideable as well, but that would be a low priority, at least for the next week (which is when I intend to have the initial offering out) The log reader would take a bit more time as well, but will get done and is fully pheasible as far as I can tell. Cheers :)

Edit: after discovering the source of the errors I was getting with the mailer plug-in, I added it to the list of future features.

By syfou (Core Developer & Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 15:41:25 2005.

DrWoland wrote:


CitizenX, I think ZeroDivide and I are going to put our heads together to destroy Torsmo :-)

:-| DrWoland, I would hate to have to moderate your posts, so I'll take this as purely humorous, as it was intended to be.

I just tried out torsmo today and I like it very much, it's very small, fast, and highly configurable. In fact, I even wonder if I had bothered writting adesklets in the first place if I knew this existed (and that's no exageration, because it fits most of my needs). This doesn't mean it's not a good idea to have a torsmoclone (or similar name) desklet around, since theeming is probably an order of magnitude easier in the "adesklets frame" than by modifing torsmo, at the expense of a few MB of virtual memory.

Personally, I would go first for maximal compatibility with the .tormorc configuration, then add features externaly while preserving the original format, as it is the approach that ensure easy choice for users, and back and forth between the two implementations... Just an idea, though.

I greatly appreciate your contribution so far: thanks helping me keep this forum a friendly place for all.

By ZeroDivide (Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 16:03:03 2005.

I'll stick to calling the desklet atuxmon, for now, as this is the working name DrWoland mentioned to me. :)

I'm more than happy to work on this with DrWoland. I'll work on the themeing, graphical, parts and leave the rest if the code to him.

I'm not sure if im going to scrap my plans to make other monitors but if this takes off i'll probably switch focus onto making some other type of desklet.

ZeroDivide

By DrWoland (Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 16:04:59 2005.

syfou wrote:

DrWoland wrote:


CitizenX, I think ZeroDivide and I are going to put our heads together to destroy Torsmo :-)

:-| DrWoland, I would hate to have to moderate your posts, so I'll take this as purely humorous, as it was intended to be.

I just tried out torsmo today and I like it very much, it's very small, fast, and highly configurable. In fact, I even wonder if I had bothered writting adesklets in the first place if I knew this existed (and that's no exageration, because it fits most of my needs). This doesn't mean it's not a good idea to have a torsmoclone (or similar name) desklet around, since theeming is probably an order of magnitude easier in the "adesklets frame" than by modifing torsmo, at the expense of a few MB of virtual memory.

Personally, I would go first for maximal compatibility with the .tormorc configuration, then add features externaly while preserving the original format, as it is the approach that ensure easy choice for users, and back and forth between the two implementations... Just an idea, though.

I greatly appreciate your contribution so far: thanks helping me keep this forum a friendly place for all.


Hmmm maintaining the torsmo syntax would be difficult, and I don't think there would be much of a point - the configuration for our mon would be very similar to the way we do Yab and Modubar - an array of settings. I don't think we're necessarily seeking to replace torsmo, of course my language was too strong. I intend to provide an alternative for users who want more features without having to mess with code (eg, there's a thread in gentoo forums about adding weather information in text format and it involves patching and editing sourcefiles) and a more graphically appealing appearance. It WILL be less resource efficient, and we probably won't call it torsmoclone, since we want it to be it's own separate entity, representing adesklets. I think if we get this together, this could be the one to really bring adesklets out to the public. I'll get cracking on it pretty quickly when I get home for spring break. Sorry for the misunderstanding, torsmo still rocks, but I find it a bit inadequate in terms of multiple instances - for some reason, they start flickering and conflicting, and it gets worse if I turn adesklets on.

By syfou (Core Developer & Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 16:09:22 2005.

ZeroDivide wrote:


I'll stick to calling the desklet atuxmon, for now

Oh, I have nothing to say about it: it's your code, not mine. :-)

But why this name? Will it be linux specific? If it is, that's approriate...To bad adesklets run on so many other things... I just received an invitation to a meeting at sgi concerning this: they'd like to integrate it into their IRIX line...

By ZeroDivide (Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 16:17:03 2005.

Thats just the name DrWoland is using at the moment.. It's not final by any means. Just something to use for the time being, instead of calling it "Torsmo killer"

[Edit]
I think its really cool that SGI is iterested in the adesklets project :D

By syfou (Core Developer & Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 16:26:39 2005.

DrWoland wrote:


Hmmm maintaining the torsmo syntax would be difficult


You bet I can do the torsmo=>configfile import in less than thirthy lines? :-)

DrWoland wrote:


and I don't think there would be much of a point


Well, it depends what you want to achieve I guess... From what you say, I understand.

DrWoland wrote:


I think if we get this together, this could be the one to really bring adesklets out to the public


Well, the more good desklets we have, the more people will want to use it, that's for sure. There is the collected download statistics for the last week. From desklets.html, there were 2601 download requests on the desklets.html page.

By DrWoland (Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 16:44:15 2005.

syfou wrote:

DrWoland wrote:


Hmmm maintaining the torsmo syntax would be difficult


You bet I can do the torsmo=>configfile import in less than thirthy lines? :-)

DrWoland wrote:


and I don't think there would be much of a point


Well, it depends what you want to achieve I guess... From what you say, I understand.

DrWoland wrote:


I think if we get this together, this could be the one to really bring adesklets out to the public


Well, the more good desklets we have, the more people will want to use it, that's for sure. There is the collected download statistics for the last week. From desklets.html, there were 2601 download requests on the desklets.html page.

  • About 50% hits went to yab
  • About 35% went to weather and weatherforecast put together.
  • The rest went to the others ones, almost evenly distributed.


If Lord Master Sylvain wants to throw together a parser once we're done with our config, he is more than welcome to :) I know it would take me a fairly long time and it would have all sorts of issues. I think the main difficulty for me as well would be the lack of knowledge of parsing techniques. I would most gladly include a converter with the desklet if you desire to write one.

By syfou (Core Developer & Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 17:24:36 2005.

DrWoland wrote:


I would most gladly include a converter with the desklet if you desire to write one

By what your objectives are, I probably won't, as it far easier to write the parser then the application on top of it, the other way around being a lot more tedious. If I ever want this, I will probably code the whole thing myself instead... But do not worry, I will not do this right away, and your desklet willl probably already be out for a while when I would be ready for publication.

A precision about my previous statistics: do not worry about your respective desklets download hits being low: the site usually experience a strong traffic increase for the two days following a core release (the freshmeat effect), so it's pretty normal that people haven't started noticing them... I am pretty sure this will change soon, with adesklets 0.4.6 being around the corner.

By DrWoland (Desklet Author), on Thu Mar 17 17:38:04 2005.

syfou wrote:

DrWoland wrote:


I would most gladly include a converter with the desklet if you desire to write one

By what your objectives are, I probably won't, as it far easier to write the parser then the application on top of it, the other way around being a lot more tedious. If I ever want this, I will probably code the whole thing myself instead... But do not worry, I will not do this right away, and your desklet willl probably already be out for a while when I would be ready for publication.

A precision about my previous statistics: do not worry about your respective desklets download hits being low: the site usually experience a strong traffic increase for the two days following a core release (the freshmeat effect), so it's pretty normal that people haven't started noticing them... I am pretty sure this will change soon, with adesklets 0.4.6 being around the corner.


I'm not worried at all, I'm not too vain about this. It's only a clock :)

By CitizenX (Themer / Graphic Artist), on Thu Mar 17 23:24:17 2005.

I agree....torsmo is a killer app. Extensively configurable, and easy enough to understand. The few bugs it has are mainly related to how it draws to the window (I cant draw multiple torsmos to the root window without blinking or major flicker). If adesklets can fill this hole with a minimum of extra overhead, and also offer me a graphical solution as well...perfect.

Kolmis: The code for the portage tracker is just modified calls of genlop...The code is here.

I'd love to be able to use shell commands in an adesklet....would make everything a lot more customizable (and with such an already extensible engine...thats saying something).

By DrWoland (Desklet Author), on Fri Mar 18 00:03:05 2005.

CitizenX wrote:

I agree....torsmo is a killer app. Extensively configurable, and easy enough to understand. The few bugs it has are mainly related to how it draws to the window (I cant draw multiple torsmos to the root window without blinking or major flicker). If adesklets can fill this hole with a minimum of extra overhead, and also offer me a graphical solution as well...perfect.

Kolmis: The code for the portage tracker is just modified calls of genlop...The code is here.

I'd love to be able to use shell commands in an adesklet....would make everything a lot more customizable (and with such an already extensible engine...thats saying something).


Check out the Yab code.

By CitizenX (Themer / Graphic Artist), on Fri Mar 18 00:24:24 2005.

I think i misstated myself....I meant to run shell commands and have the output displayed in a desklet....still on the torsmo topic. $exec lets you run any command and have the output displayed in torsmo. $execi sets this command at a specified interval. yab will let me run the command yes, but I get no display from it....which is what I wanted in the first place :)

By DrWoland (Desklet Author), on Fri Mar 18 11:26:13 2005.

CitizenX wrote:

I think i misstated myself....I meant to run shell commands and have the output displayed in a desklet....still on the torsmo topic. $exec lets you run any command and have the output displayed in torsmo. $execi sets this command at a specified interval. yab will let me run the command yes, but I get no display from it....which is what I wanted in the first place :)


I have some ideas that I unfortunately can't test right now due to being booted into windows against my will. I will mess around with it and let you know.

Edit: Found it online. Theoretically, we should be able to do the following:

Example: display /var/log/messages

Code:


eval "cat /var/log/messages > /path/to/a/buffer/file"
*read file* (sorry I don't know what code would go here, don't have time to look at python reference right now)
*display the contents into the desklet with text_draw()*


This will be very helpful in coding this torsmo-esque endeavour :)

By syfou (Core Developer & Desklet Author), on Fri Mar 18 14:06:57 2005.

:lol:

DrWoland wrote:


Example: display /var/log/messages
Code:

eval "cat /var/log/messages > /path/to/a/buffer/file"
*read file* (sorry I don't know what code would go here, don't have time to look at python reference right now)
*display the contents into the desklet with text_draw()*


Seriously, please do not use this. Here, instead of a simple system call, you managed to create a temporary file, and fork minimally two external process (a shell, and cat), not speaking of the horrible security abuse I could make of it (due to the eval bit). Have a look at popen family of functions from the os module (calqued on their venerable AT&T UNIX counterparts) instead. I would rewrite you example simply:

Code:

os.popen('cat /var/log/messages').readlines()


Of course, in that case, If the point was not to get back the ouput of an external process, you could simply poll periodically from /var/log/messages... (which should be impossible anyway as a normal user on a reasonably secured UNIX system).

By DrWoland (Desklet Author), on Fri Mar 18 14:30:05 2005.

syfou wrote:

:lol:

DrWoland wrote:


Example: display /var/log/messages
Code:

eval "cat /var/log/messages > /path/to/a/buffer/file"
*read file* (sorry I don't know what code would go here, don't have time to look at python reference right now)
*display the contents into the desklet with text_draw()*


Seriously, please do not use this. Here, instead of a simple system call, you managed to create a temporary file, and fork minimally two external process (a shell, and cat), not speaking of the horrible security abuse I could make of it (due to the eval bit). Have a look at popen family of functions from the os module (calqued on their venerable AT&T UNIX counterparts) instead. I would rewrite you example simply:

Code:

os.popen('cat /var/log/messages').readlines()


Of course, in that case, If the point was not to get back the ouput of an external process, you could simply poll periodically from /var/log/messages... (which should be impossible anyway as a normal user on a reasonably secured UNIX system).


Hey, just throwing out ideas :) And you're right, just tried cat /var/log/messages and got permission denied. I'll look into popen. Thanks for your guidance as usual :P

adesklets is proud to be hosted on:

SourceForge.net Logo

Back to adesklets.sf.net.