conky/doc/docs.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.3//EN"
               "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.3/docbookx.dtd" [
               <!ENTITY testtable SYSTEM "test.xml">
               <!ENTITY command_options SYSTEM "command_options.xml">
               <!ENTITY config_settings SYSTEM "config_settings.xml">
               <!ENTITY variables SYSTEM "variables.xml">
               ]>

<refentry>
  <refentryinfo>
    <address>
      <email>brenden1@users.sourceforge.net</email>
    </address>
    <author>
      <firstname>Brenden</firstname>
      <surname>Matthews</surname>
    </author>
    <date>2005-10-17</date>
  </refentryinfo>

  <refmeta>
    <refentrytitle>conky</refentrytitle>
    <manvolnum>1</manvolnum>
  </refmeta>

  <refnamediv>
    <refname>conky</refname>
    <refpurpose>A system monitor for X originally based on the torsmo code, but more kickass.  It just keeps on given'er. Yeah.</refpurpose>
  </refnamediv>

  <refsynopsisdiv>
    <cmdsynopsis>
      <command>conky</command>
      <arg><replaceable>options</replaceable></arg>
    </cmdsynopsis>
  </refsynopsisdiv>
  
  <refsect1>
    <title>Description</title>
    <para>
    Conky is a system monitor for X originally based on the torsmo code. 
    Since it's original conception, Conky has changed a fair bit from it's predecessor.  
    Conky can display just about anything, either on your root desktop or in it's own window.  
    Conky has many built-in objects, as well as the ability to execute programs and scripts, 
    then display the output from stdout.
		</para>
		<para>
		We are always looking for help, and anyone interested in becoming a developer is welcome.  
		Please use the facilities at SourceForge to make bug reports, feature requests, and submit patches.
		</para>
		<para>
		Thanks for your interest in Conky.
		</para>    
  </refsect1>

	<refsect1>
		<title>Compiling</title>
		<para>
		For users compiling from source, make sure you have the X development libraries installed. 
		This should be a package along the lines of "libx11-dev or xorg-x11-dev". 
		</para>
		<para>
		Gentoo users -- Conky is in Gentoo's Portage... simply use "emerge app-admin/conky" for installation.
		There is also usually an up-to-date ebuild within Conky's package or in	CVS.
		</para>
		<para>
		Debian,etc. users -- Conky will be in Debian's repositories soon (by mid-September, hopefully), and then 
		Ubuntu shortly thereafter. Until then, "dpkg -i" the .deb package to install. 
		</para>
		<para>
		To compile and run Conky with all optional components:
		</para>
		<variablelist>
			<varlistentry>
				<term>
					<command><option>sh autogen.sh</option></command> <option># Only required if building from CVS</option>
				</term>
			</varlistentry>
			<varlistentry>
				<term>
				<command><option>./configure </option></command><option>
				--prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info
				--datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var/lib 
				--enable-double-buffer --enable-own-window --enable-proc-uptime 
				--enable-mpd --enable-xft --enable-seti</option>
				</term>
			</varlistentry>
			<varlistentry>
				<term>
					<command><option>make</option></command>
				</term>
			</varlistentry>
			<varlistentry>
				<term>
					<command><option>make install</option></command> <option># Optional</option>
				</term>
			</varlistentry>
			<varlistentry>
				<term>
					<command><option>src/conky</option></command>	
				</term>
			</varlistentry>
		</variablelist>
		<para>
			Conky probably doesn't compile with compilers other than gcc and icc. 
			It doesn't compile with C89 compiler and not even with pure C99.
			It uses a few	things that might not exist: strdup(), strcasecmp(), strncasecmp(), 
			optarg variable with getopt() and long long (not in C89). Crashes in file system
			statistics stuff when compiled with icc, I don't know exactly why.
		</para>
		<para>
			You can disable 'drawing to own window' feature in case you don't need it	by passing 
			--disable-own-window to configure -script.
		</para>
		<para>
			
		</para>
	</refsect1>


  
  <refsect1>
    <title>You Should Know</title>
    <para>
		Conky is generally very good on resources.  However, certain objects in
		Conky are harder on resources then others.  In particular, the $tail,
		$top, $font, and $graph objects are quite costly in comparison to the rest of Conky.
		</para>
		<para>
		If you do use them, please do not complain about memory or CPU usage, 
		unless you think something's seriously wrong (mem leak, etc.).
		</para>
		<para>
		An easy way to force Conky to reload your ~/.conkyrc: "killall -SIGUSR1 conky".
		Saves you the trouble of having to kill and then restart.
		</para>
		<para>
		IMPORTANT: For previous Conky users, Conky 1.3 no longer supports the metar stuff. 
		mdsplib was causing way too many problems. Hopefully there'll be a better solution in Conky 2.x...
		</para>
  </refsect1>  
  
  <refsect1>
    <title>Options</title>
    	
    <para>Command line options override configurations defined in configuration file.</para>
     
		&command_options;

  </refsect1>

	<refsect1>
		<title>Configuration Settings</title>
		
		<para>
		Default configuration file is $HOME/.conkyrc (can be changed from
		conky.c among other things). See conkyrc.sample. If installing from Debian package, 
		this should be in /usr/share/doc/conky/examples ("gunzip conkyrc.sample.gz" to get conkyrc.sample).
		</para>
		<para>
		You might want to copy it to $HOME/.conkyrc and then start modifying it.
		Other configs can be found at http://conky.sf.net
		</para>
		
		&config_settings;
	</refsect1>

	<refsect1>
		<title>Variables</title>
		
		<para>
		Colors are parsed using XParsecolor(), there might be a list of them:
		/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Also, <ulink url="http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html">
																			 http://sedition.com/perl/rgb.html</ulink>.
		Color can be also in #rrggbb format (hex).
		
		Note that when displaying bytes, power is 1024 and not 1000 so 1M really
		means 1024*1024 bytes and not 1000*1000.
		</para>
		
		&variables;
	</refsect1>

	<refsect1>
		<title>Examples</title>
		<variablelist>
		
			<varlistentry>
				<term><varname>conky </varname><option>-t &apos;${time %D %H:%m}&apos; -o -u 30</option></term>
				<listitem>Start Conky in its own window with date and clock as text and 30 sec update interval.</listitem>
			</varlistentry>
			
			<varlistentry>
				<term><varname>conky </varname><option>-a top_left -x 5 -y 500 -d</option></term>
				<listitem>Start Conky to background at coordinates (5, 500).</listitem>
			</varlistentry>
			
		</variablelist>
	</refsect1>

	<refsect1>
		<title>Files</title>
		<filename>~/.conkyrc</filename> default configuration file
	</refsect1>

	<refsect1>
		<title>Bugs</title>
		<para>	
		Drawing to root or some other desktop window directly doesn't work with 
		all window managers. Especially doesn't work well with Gnome and it has 
		been reported that it doesn't work with KDE either. Nautilus can be 
		disabled from drawing to desktop with program gconf-editor. Uncheck 
		show_desktop in /apps/nautilus/preferences/. There is -w switch in Conky 
		to set some specific window id. You might find xwininfo -tree useful to 
		find the window to draw to. You can also use -o argument which makes
		Conky to create its own window.
		</para>
	</refsect1>

  <refsect1>
    <title>See Also</title>    
    <para><ulink url="http://conky.sourceforge.net">
    http://conky.sourceforge.net</ulink></para>
    <para><ulink url="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/conky">
    http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/conky</ulink></para>
		<para>
			#conky on irc.freenode.net
		</para>
  </refsect1>
  
	<refsect1>
		<title>Authors</title>
		<para>
			The Conky dev team. What's up now!
		</para>
	</refsect1>  
	  
</refentry>