Conky display help

[wcs]

after some more testing I found out that this does not really solve my issue. So the search 4 an answer continues

Maybe if you try changing some of those own_window_hints. I think the desktop and override options just implement different hints, so you can change them directly for "fine-tuning" and comment out own_window_type. Not sure what the problem might be though. Maybe the same as in KDE where the desktop is drawn on top of conky?

[toothandnail]

With Xfce, just have it running ('conky &' from a terminal or ALT-F2, 'conky'), then log off with the 'save for future sessions' box ticked. It will come back the next time you log in.

A possibly better way in Xfce is to go to settings and Autostarted applications, and make an entry for conky.
The save for future sessions might save stuff you don't want to save, and I remember some old problems with it (maybe solved now, but I got into the habit of never saving sessions).

  I did that originally, but then hit a small problem - if you ever do save Xfce settings on exit (say to fix the icon arrangement), next time you log into Xfce, you'll end up with multiple instances of Conky.

Xfce seems a bit inconsistent in its handling of autostart. For Wbar, you have to use an autostart (creating a desktop file in ~/.config/autostart), since simply saving the session will not have it restart.

paul.

[toothandnail]

I remember having a very hard time with trying to get it to work properly with kde. Either the transparency, or the colours, or the icons always got screwed up.
I tried it with 5.8 so at the time, so I don't think esetroot or feh were in the repos, and ended up forgetting about it.

So far I'm not doing too well with it. At present I've got own_desktop_type set to override, which means that it stays visible, and doesn't overwrite the KDE desktop icons. No transparency though - a solid black background.

Let us know if it works... I think this is a very old problem with conky (or with KDE) due to the desktop being drawn over the root window... or something.

I've grabbed the feh source and with any luck should get it built in the next few hours. Hopefully that may solve the problem. I'll let everyone know anyway.

paul.

[rbistolfi]

Hi Paul, there is a feh package in the testing repo already:

http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-5.9/testing/base-apps/feh-1.3.4-i586-1vl59.tlz

HTH

[toothandnail]

Hi Paul, there is a feh package in the testing repo already:

http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-5.9/testing/base-apps/feh-1.3.4-i586-1vl59.tlz

HTH

  Thanks. I had a look, but must have missed it. I'll grab it as soon as I can get the machine near a working link.

paul.

[wcs]

Grin I did that originally, but then hit a small problem - if you ever do save Xfce settings on exit (say to fix the icon arrangement), next time you log into Xfce, you'll end up with multiple instances of Conky.

Makes sense... Hadn't thought of that 

[toothandnail]

I finally got Conky working under KDE. Took a bit of fiddling to do though.

First, in order not to have Conky vanish the first time I right-clicked on the desktop, I had to set  'own_window_type normal'. Having it set at the recommended 'desktop' would result in Conky being hidden below the desktop as soon as anything was done.

Second, I have to set the background using Esetroot (feh was recommended, but I was in a hurry, so downloaded the package from testing, rather than use gslapt to get it, and missed a dependency). Once I have the dep, I might try feh again, but Esetroot does also work.

What I had to do to get Conky's transparent background working was to create a short shell script in ~/.kde/Autostart. Its pretty simple -

Code:

#!/bin/bash
Esetroot -s /usr/share/wallpapers/vector-blue.jpg &

I initially tried to add the Esetroot command to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.kde but that didn't work. The recommendation in the Conky FAQ is to add feh or Esetroot to ~/.xinitrc, but Vector doesn't seem to use that, so I had to improvise.

This seems to work, though it does have one side effect that I've noticed - if I attempt to start compwiz-fusion, X dies and I end up back at the KDM login prompt. Not sure if there is a cure for that one, but compwiz doesn't work too wall on my laptop anyway, so I'm not going to worry too much 

BTW, the conky 1.5.1 package seems to be taking a while to get through initial testing. If anyone wants a copy, PM me with your email address and I'll attach a copy. Its not very big - about 110 K, if I remember correctly.

paul.