One problem has been driving me nuts, and that is swallowing Conky (version 1.3.0, tried 1.3.1 as well) into a little corner of my desktop inside a FvwmButtons. It displays for a second, then disappears. I can make it stay longer before disappearing if I use the -u switch and set 10 seconds, then it stays for 10 seconds. This should imply that it has problems updating itself within the FvwmButton.
I’ve tried with and without xft, with and without double buffer. I’ve configured Conky to only display a tiny bif of info to make it fit inside the FvwmButton. Putting other applications inside the same FvwmButton is not a problem either. I’ve tried Torsmo as well, they are mostly built with the same code(?) so since both have the same problem, maybe it’s related to some buildtime/code bug? I’m using Gentoo and emerging either of them was not troublesome at all. I’m using the "un"stable gcc-3.4.4, maybe that can be a problem for Conky? although I’ve not had any problem with any other application. I tried building them for pentium3 and pentium4 instead of pentium-m, but that did not help.
I even got a working fvwm config from klavrynd in here, and that did not help either. So I suppose nothing is wrong with my fvwm config, using the latest fvwm version by the way (2.5.12).
I’ve certainly tried everything except using a different gcc version as far as I can tell. Frustrating, maybe someone knows a really good replacement for Conky/Torsmo?
Otherwise I’m hoping someone has run into a similar problem and found a solution which I’ve failed to do yet.
It popped up and displayed correctly in the swalled window. Then a few seconds later, the contents of the window disappeared. I resized the window, and it was fine.
I repeated it a few times, and if I never reszie, it simply stays ‘disappeared’. If I resize it once, it doesn’t disappear again. Not sure where the bug is, but as a workaround, you could set your desired size after the module is placed, for example, if you named your module ConkyModule, and wanted it to be 320 pixels(wide) by 40 pixels(tall), you could do this:
All ("ConkyButton") Resize 320p 40p
[edit: typo… s/ant/and/]
[edit: Execute is a function in my config and that was originally used above, but I replaced it with ‘Exec exec’ in the code above to avoid confusion - I doubt anyone had even seen it yet, thus rendering this lengthy edit description completely pointless…]
Excellent! resizing the window activates it again, some times you need to hear ideas from other people. Thanks.
I’m sadly far too inexperienced with Fvwm yet though, could you explain that resize command a bit further? I’m sorry to say I can’t seem to make it work. Where should I put it? I tried the following…
DestroyFunc StartFunction
AddToFunc StartFunction
+ I Module FvwmButtons -g 241x59+5-5 FvwmConky
+ I All ("FvwmConky") Resize 242p 60p
That’s what he meant I think, but I suppose you need to throw in a Schedule or Wait before the Resize command as Fvwm just executes all commands in StartFunction simultaneously, so it doesn’t wait for the previous command to finish, so it might very well be possible that it executes the Resize before Conky has been started (your logs should be able to tell you if this is the case though iirc)…
Well, as far as I can tell it is not doing the resize command at all. It seems to only work if I type it in a FvwmConsole. I tried this as well
DestroyFunc InitFunction
AddToFunc InitFunction
+ I All ("FvwmConky") Resize 242p 60p
Since InitFunction is run after StartFunction (I think?) it should happen after the initial setup and resize at the desired time. If only it did any resizing at all. There must be a flaw here I’m not noticing?
Thank you for the help guys, at least now it is resizing. I only need to experiment a bit because I think for conky this is happening too fast. The window is being resized but after the resize it still disappears.
No, conky’s text disappears from the FvwmButton I’ve made. It re-appears when and if I resize the window even by just 1 pixel. Been using FvwmConsole to type in the resize command once I’m inside Xorg, but that’s too much hassle. Was hoping to have it resize automatically for me. (In order to get conky to re-appear automatically). But apparently your solution is resizing too quickly? since it does not help… I still have to resize manually after I get into Xorg.
Ah, I see. How small are we talking here? I mean, what size is the swallowed window in which conky sits? Can you provide a screenshot, only from what you’re describing there, some apps really don’t like to be resized too small. Xterm is a classic example of this – and it goes mad (such as mangling prompts up and such) It could be that conky is exhibiting the same symptoms for the same reasons.
It’s not resizing too quickly – the “wait” command ensures the window is visible before the operation happens. Indeed, if you think it needs a time delay, then by all means try:
+ I Schedule 700 Next (FvwmConky) Resize .....
But I suspect that won’t help you. I might take a furher look at this if I get time, although I don’t like nor use tormso/conky or any of the other system monitors out there like it… if the problem persists, I’ll see what I can do. You might also want to make the conky people aware of this issue as well.
Actually, that did the trick. Although I needed to delay it higher. I put in 1000 and then it worked. I’m not too happy about this solution though, a kinda hack. As you said I think I will contact the Conky people and have them think this over.
As for the size, I’m making the window be 200x50 pixels.
Glad to see you’ve (sort of) solved your problem, and sorry for my lack of reply. I didn’t have opportunity to check back again yesterday.
If you frequent IRC, I’ve seen at least one dev in #fvwm for Conky, and he/she was very helpful when I was trying it out on my iBook. Though I regret I cannot recall the username he/she was using.
I don’t really frequent IRC though, haven’t been on there in a few years now. I think I’ve seen one post on the gentoo forums, I’ll try there. I hope this can be fixed. Now I can finally concentrate a bit more on different things in my Fvwm configuration.
I had a problem with true type fonts not displaying when conky was swallowed into a fvwmbuttons (normal x fonts worked ok, and xft fonts worked only if I turned off the double buffering) with conky-1.3.1, it all seems solved so far with 1.3.3… But i havent figured how to display the fvwmbuttons tinting thru conky’s transparent background (if that is ever possible). It just shows a root transparence.
If what I want is not possible, what’s the advantage of swallowing conky into fvwmbuttons instead of just using it windowed, with the sticky attributes and the neverfocus policy?
Well, it looks more integrated for starters, it’s also less work to swallow it into an already existing panel than to figure out the coordinates you need to use to position it so that it seems like it is part of the panel.
Oh, and you can put a border around the entire panel, looks nicely integrated then
i’m swallowing conky and it works fine with top_left alignment and transparent colorset…
now i’m trying to know if i can put it on multi-line using conky on command line (not using .conkyrc)… any suggest?
thanks!
I realize this is somewhat of an old thread, and for that I apologize, I just ran into this problem and just want to report with conky 1.4 the alignment top_left fixes it from not showing, and but the above patch has the wrong line numbers, here is the correct patch file for those who don’t want sift through code
Thanks.
