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dzen

dzen is a utility wich integrates well with dwm/wmii and displays user defined messages and notifications.

Requirements

In order to build dzen you need the Xlib and phtread header files.

Installation

Edit config.mk to match your local setup (dzen is installed into the /usr/local namespace by default).

Afterwards enter the following command to build and install dzen (if necessary as root):

make clean install

Running dzen

dzen accepts a couple of options:

    -fg     foreground color
    -bg     background color
    -fn     font 
    -a      autohide, see 1)
    -l      lines, see 2)
    -e      events and actions, see 3)
    -p      persistent, never time out
    -x      x position
    -y      y position
    -w      width
    -v      version information

Termination

dzen2 uses to different approaches to terminate itself:

If EOF is received -> terminate
- unless the '-p' flag is set
If the title window receives a mouseclick -> terminate

Return values:

0               -   dzen received EOF
1               -   some error occured, inspect the error message

user defined - set with 'exit:retval' action

1) Option "-a": Autohide

Hides the title window as soon as the pointer leaves it. This very much resembles autohiding panels known from most desktops.

2) Option "-l": Slave window

Enables support for displaying multiple lines. The parameter to "-l" specifies the number of lines to be displayed.

These lines of input are held in the slave window which becomes active as soon as the pointer enters the title (default action) window.

If the mouse leaves the multiline window it will be hidden unless it is set sticky by clicking with Button1 into it (default action).

Button4 and Button5 (mouse wheel) will scroll the multiline window up and down if the content exceeds the window height (default action).

3) Option '-e': Events and actions

dzen allows the user to define specific actions to some defined events.

The command line syntax is as follow:
-e 'event1=action1:option1:...option<n>,...,action<m>;...;event<l>'

Every event can take any number of actions and every action can take any number of options. (Currently limited to 256 each)

An example:

-e 'button1=exec:xterm:firefox;entertitle=uncollapse,unhide;button3=exit'

Meaning

button1=exec:xterm:firefox;
on Button1 event (Button1 press on the mouse) execute xterm and firefox.
(Note: xterm and firefox are options to the exec action)

entertitle=uncollapse,unhide;
on entertitle (mouse pointer enters the title window) uncollapse multiline window and unhide the title window

button3=exit
on button3 event exit dzen

Supported events:

    button1             Mouse button1 released 
    button2             Mouse button2 released
    button3             Mouse button3 released
    button4             Mouse button4 released (usually scrollwheel)
    button5             Mouse button5 released (usually scrollwheel)
    entertitle          Mouse enters the title window
    leavetitle          Mouse leaves the title window
    enterslave          Mouse enters the Ñ•lave window
    leaveslave          Mouse leaves the slave window

Not supported yet:

sigusr1
sigusr2

Supported actions:

exec:command1:..:n Execute all given options

    exit:retval         Exit dzen and return 'retval'
    collapse            collapse multiline window
    uncollapse          uncollapse multiline window
    stick               stick multiline window
    unstick             unstick multiline window
    togglestick         toggle sticky state
    hide                hide title window
    unhide              unhide title window
    scrollup            scroll slave window one line up
    scrolldown          scroll slave window one line down

Note: The hide/unhide actions can only be used if '-a' is supplied on

the command line.

Examples

Display message and timeout after 10 seconds: (echo "This is a message"; sleep 10) | dzen2 -bg darkred -fg grey80 -fn fixed
Display message and never timeout: echo "This is a message"| dzen2 -p
Display updating single line message: for i in $(seq 1 20); do A=${A}'='; print $A; sleep 1; done | ./dzen2
Display header and multiline message: (echo Header; cal; sleep 20) | dzen2 -l 8

Displays "Header" in the main alert window and the output of cal in the 8 lines high multiline window.

Display updating messages: (echo Header; while true; do echo test$((i++)); sleep 1; done) | dzen2 -l 12

The slave window will update contents if new input has arrived.

Display log files: (su -c "echo LOGFILENAME; tail -f /var/log/messages") | dzen2 -l 20 -x 100 -y 300 -w 500
Monthly schedule with remind: (echo Monthly Schedule; remind -c1 -m)|dzen2 -l 52 -w 410 -p -fn lime -bg '#e0e8ea' -fg black -x 635