This repo contains a few hacks that can be used with the XFCE genmon (generic monitoring) plugin. All these scripts assume a font size small enough to display two lines of text.
foocal displays the current date and time according to several traditional Chinese systems, the Hebrew system, and optionally a Western astrological proportional hour system.
The Chinese system for dates is the lunar calendar still in use today; and for time, pre-1645 centigrade and hybrid duodecimal–centigrade time systems, plus a very old (Shang-era) proportional decimal time system. Centigrade time is assumed to reset at midnight, local time (instead of, say, as some sources claim, based on sunrise or the high noon); night watches in the proportional decimal system is assumed to start at sundown and end at sunrise (instead of, say, as one source claims, 3 centidays after sundown and 3 centidays before sunrise).
The Hebrew system is the Hebrew calendar and proportional time, both calibrated to begin each day at sundown (instead of at midnight or at 6pm). This means that between sundown and midnight, foocal and hebcal will disagree on what day it is.
foocal currently relies on HKO data for Chinese lunar dates; it’s supposed to automatically download them but this has not been tested in a long time. Hebrew date support relies on hebcal, which must be installed.
To make the output compatible with genmon, the -g or --genmon argument must be given.
In genmon mode, you can hover your mouse over the date and time to read a longer description.
You can also run this script in sysline mode (-w or --sysline);
this will cause the script to reduce its output to a single line,
suitable for use in a .who file.
Example: I use foocal -m -p all -g --iconic which means
divide centidays into Sui/Tang 60-part minutes (-m),
display Western astrological date and time (-p all),
and “always” use icons (--iconic)
The script provides a --help option that explains all available options.
Note that in the tooltip that you get when you hover your mouse over the date and time, names the days of the week are not the usual English names but literal translations of what they are called in the original languages.
Note also that a Sui/Tang minute (1/60 of a centiday) is equal to exactly 14.4 seconds (the actual metric unit) while a centi-centiday is equal to exactly 8.64 seconds. Given that this script is quite slow, it’s probably very unwise to run it any more frequently than every 8 or 9 seconds.
tzdate is a very simple script that takes the name of a timezone code and displays the current date and time in that timezone.
Example: tzdate Europe/Berlin displays the current Central European time
The weather script connects to an RSS feed offered by Environment Canada to display current weather conditions. It will cache the data to avoid overloading Environment Canada’s servers.
To make the output compatible with genmon, the -g or --genmon argument must be given.
In genmon mode, you can hover your mouse over the date and time to read a longer description
plus two forecasts.
The script by default pulls weather data for Toronto (which means Pearson, not the city centre, so it’s really Mississauga not Toronto);
if you aren’t anywhere near Toronto or Mississauga you should
consult Environment Canada’s weather site to figure out the correct code for your city,
then use the --city option to specify the correct city.
The code should look something like bc-85 (Victoria), on-143 (Toronto), or qc-147 (Montreal).
You can also run this script in sysline mode (-w or --sysline);
this will cause the script to reduce its output to a single line,
suitable for use in a .who file.
The script provides a --help option that explains all available options.
Example: weather -g --iconic makes sure icons are used (--iconic)