Linux Certif

Toute la documentation sur la certification Linux LPI

qnotify

NAME

qnotify - Desktop notifications

SYNOPSIS

qnotify [options]

DESCRIPTION

qnotify QNotify is a small and windowmanager independant utility to inform you of events of any kind. When a specific event occurres, a small window will pop up showning a message or an image. The window does not take away the focus of any other application. Additionally, it stais on top of the Desktop and does not disappear when changing workspaces. The graphical look can be controled by a lot of option like colors, geometry, time shown, flickering or transparency.

The tool is especially designed for those who are not using KDE, but it is written with the framework QT from Trolltech and so it is useable with any windowmanager.

Since version 0.3, there is a daemon called qnotifyd which stais in background and keeps track of all shown windows. It manages the alignment of all qnotify windows and therefore avoids overlapping of events. For further information about the daemon look at man qnotifyd.

Common OPTIONS

-l --socketfile <filename>

The socket filename on which the daemon (qnotifyd) listens. Default is ~/tmp/qnotify.socket

-m --message <message>

The message that should be displayed. If not given, standard input will be used. If this is also empty, use a default message.

You can use all common html tags to configure the view of the displayed message. Enclose the message in quotation marks if it consists of more then one word. Additionally you have to escape caracters like \ with \\. No word wrapping is performed, so use <br> tags to break lines.

To display images use the <img src=...> tag. To scale the image to a specific size use the width option inside the img tag. By default the image is scaled to a width of 150 and appears in the left bottom corner of the desktop.

Instead of specifying a text on the command line, you can also specify a file. A file can contain several widgets which are displayed one after another. Each widget gets its own options. Use the "<widget" tag followed by the same options which can be given on the command line. Don't forget to terminate the widget tag by a ">" after the options. In filemode, the text is not given by the -m switch, but after the termination of the <widget> tag. So you can display whole html pages as long qt's html-engine supports the used tags.

-o --fontsize <size>

The textsize. You can also specify the textsize with the <font... tag.

-x --x-pos <x-Position>

The x-position of the window from the top left corner of the desktop in pixels

-y --y-pos <y-Position>

The y-position of the window from the top left corner of the desktop in pixels. If the widget would be out of the desktops boundaries it is moved to be displayed completely.

-w --width <width>

The x-size of the window in pixels. The contents is scaled accordingly

-e --height <height>

The y-size of the window in pixels

-c --count <count>

The amount of times the window shall be shown and hidden. So flickering is possible.

-s --time-show <time>

The time how long the window shall be shown in seconds before the next time it is hidden. You can use floating point numbers like 1.0234 to specify the time precisely. If you want to show a window infinite, specify 0 as showtime.

-t --time-hide <time>

The time how long the window shall be hidden before the next time it is shown in seconds. You can use floating point numbers like 1.0234 to specify the time precisely.

-n --foreground-color <color>

The foreground color respectively the color of the text. Usual color names like black, blue or white can be used. Also hex values are possible.

-z --background-color <color>

The color of the background. Usual color names like black, blue or white can e used. Also hex values are possible.

--fullscreen

Fullscreen mode. This option has priority in respect of -xs,-ys,-x or -y. Can be used to display images on the whole desktop.

--alert

Alert mode. Try it! :-)

-a --alignment-function <character>

How the widgets should be aligned on the desktop. <character> is one of h,v, or d which stands for horizontal, vertical or diagonal. Only takes affect in combination with the daemon.

--rounding-off

Do not draw rounded edges.

--plain

Make a plain widget, for instance no colored background no rounding

--no-shadow

Do not draw shadowed text

--frame

Let the widget have a usual frame. Also focus is taken away if such a widget appears. (does not work with kde)

-T --spacing

The space between, for instance the text and the widget boundaries.

--center

Center the widget on the desktop.

-R --rounding-factor

Specify how rounded the widget should be. Possible values are at the moment 1 to whatever you like (millions are possible but have no affect). This changes in future.

--transparent

Show the window transparent.

-F --coord-file

A file which specifies the coordinates on the desktop the widget should move. The file is looked for in the following sequence:

1. Current directory

2. ~/.qnotify/

3. /usr/lib/qnotify/
If no such file with the given name is found, qnotify looks for a file with the extension pl or sh. If found, it generates the output file with the name of the file given without the extension. So for example a move.pl file given will result in a file named move. If the script was found in the working direcory, the output file is also put in the current directory. If the script was found in /usr/lib/qnotify/ or ~/.qnotify/, the output is saved in ~/.qnotify/.
!!! Not implemented yet: The script gets two parameters from the daemon. This parameters specify the X-Desktop resolution. The first one is the x-, the second one the y-value in pixels.
A sample file looks like that:

0,0,10

10,10,10

20,20,20

100,100,20

400,400,30

800,800,30

1200,1000,40

The widget will move from the top left corner (0x0) to the bottom right (1200x1000) (on a screen with resulution 1200x1000 pixels). The value on the left specifies the x-value, the middle value the y-value. The third part is the time in milliseconds until the next coordinates (the next line) is evaluated.
Each coordinate (with x and y) has to be placed on one single line. The file is read from top to bottom.

--message-box

Display a small message box with a ok button.

Options in respect of a progress bar or dialog

--progress-dialog

Show a dialog with a text, a progress bar and a button.

The progress bar can be controlled by a pipe (default ~/qnotify.fifo) if both --step and --fulltime are set to 0. You can echo values (e.g. echo "67|67 percent" > ~/qnotify.fifo) into this pipe to let the bar run. The value before the pipe character (|) is the value to which the bar should move. The value after the pipe is any text one might set for the progress indicator.

-N --bar-background-color <color>

The color of the progress bar

-f --fifo-filename <filename>

Use the specified fifofile. You can echo (echo 5 > fifofile) integers to this fifo to control the progress bar.

-u --step <step>

How many steps the progress bar performes before 100 percent are reached.

-v --fulltime <time in seconds>

The time until the progress bar has reached 100 percent in seconds.

--auto

Pick a random notification mode either from /usr/lib/qnotify/, ~/.qnotify or from the current working directory.

-h --help

Show a little help screen

TODO

- Redesign the interface to make it possible to contruct own widgets only containing the things you like.

- Wishlist: QNotify will be able to display presentations

AUTHOR

Holger Macht <holger@homac.de>