conky + tablet rotation

[SnickerSnack]

I'm having some trouble getting conky to play nice with tablet screen rotation.

Here is the background info (the question will come at the end).

The first problem I had was conky had the wrong background (solid black) after switching from landscape to portrait. I figured out that this was because conky was grabbing its background from a region that is off-screen and is therefore black (my default solid color background).

So, I added a line in some scripts to restart conky when rotating, and a new problem arose. First an over view of my scripts.

I have four scripts that actually perform the rotation commands: rotatenormal, rotateinverted, rotateleft, and rotateright. Here is rotatenormal which sets the rotation mode to normal:


xrandr -o normal
xsetwacom set stylus Rotate none
sudo setkeycodes 0x71 103 0x6f 108 0x6e 105 0x6d 106

Then I have two scripts which call the appropriate rotateXYZ script based on the current rotation state: rotatebuttonl and rotatebuttonp (l for landscape, p for portrait). Here is rotatebuttonl which calls rotateinverted if the screen is currently in normal mode, calls rotateinverted otherwise, and records the change in the file rotationmode:


mode=`cat /usr/bin/rotationmode`

if test 0 = $mode
then
echo 1 > /usr/bin/rotationmode
rotateinverted
fi

if test 1 = $mode
then
echo 0 > /usr/bin/rotationmode
rotatenormal
fi

if test 2 = $mode
then
echo 0 > /usr/bin/rotationmode
rotatenormal
fi

if test 3 = $mode
then
echo 0 > /usr/bin/rotationmode
rotatenormal
fi

killall conky
wait
conky

Originally, conky was not affected by the scripts, but after the first problem (conky had black background), I added the lines


killall conky
conky

to the end of the four rotateXYZ scripts. This fixed that problem, but then had the result that sometimes conky failed to start again after being killed. So, I removed those lines and added


killall conky
wait
conky

to the ends of the rotatebuttonXYZ scripts. It did not fix the problem.

So, question: How can I change my bash scripts so that conky always restarts? Or: Is there a better way to make sure that conky always has the right background image?

Thanks

[bra|10n]

Wow I didn't know that you could rotate conky! Can it be done at a set interval?

Don't know I can help much here but a couple of points;
conky has a pause variable inbuilt.
Most use a bash script to start conky, the advantage of leaving such lines outside of your conkyrc.
Some people even use a bash script with a shortcut icon to toggle conky on and off.

ConkyHardcore! has some info that might help...

http://conky.linux-hardcore.com/

cheers

[SnickerSnack]

Actually, I'n rotating the whole screen, not conky itself.

See:
http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn276/zacherysharon/desktops%20backgrounds/conkyRotateP.png
http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn276/zacherysharon/desktops%20backgrounds/conkyRotateL.png

Thanks anyway.

[bra|10n]

Oops :oops:

Ok that makes a solution somewhat clearer / easier then doesn't it?
Something along the the lines of an $if_ statement in your conky_restart.sh linked to your rotation scripts?

[SnickerSnack]

I figured out one solution. I added


killall conky
wait
sleep 0.1
conky

to the end of the script.

Edit: Even that doesn't work 100% of the time. Conky fails to restart less often though.


Something along the the lines of an $if_ statement in your conky_restart.sh linked to your rotation scripts?

Maybe that would work, but sleeping for a tenth of a second did the trick. Thanks.

[SnickerSnack]

Is there a way to get conky to grab its background image from the desktop background based on some condition (if statement?)?

I'm checking the site you linked for that right now.

EDIT: I'm making no progress with if_exists in .conkyrc

[SnickerSnack]

Yeah, ${if_exists} works fine as a variable in the text area, but not in the config area. Basically, I need to make an if statement in the config area of .conkyrc.

I'd also appreciate it if anyone could tell me about a way to see why conky is failing to restart.

[bra|10n]

Yeah, ${if_exists} works fine as a variable in the text area, but not in the config area. Basically, I need to make an if statement in the config area of .conkyrc.

I'd also appreciate it if anyone could tell me about a way to see why conky is failing to restart.

If you start conky via the terminal it will list problems encountered...

Conky takes a 'snapshot of the desktop' prior to loading to give the impression of transparent background, though I know you are aware of this...
So as a consequence, and regarding the $If_exists statement, I was thinking more along the lines of $If_exists 'rotation', then 'reload conky' via another ${exec } ? call to an external start_stop.sh script, which should take care of the background issue? Hang on, shouldn't update_interval 1 ensure the correct background is loaded?

Just some thoughts, this is stretching my scripting knowledge :(

[SnickerSnack]

If you start conky via the terminal it will list problems encountered...

I tried that. It turns out that commands such as


killall -SIGUSR1 conky
killall conky ; conky
killall conky && conky

sometimes cause conky to segfault. It seems (from googling) that there is no way to have conky restart and do it correctly every time.


Conky takes a 'snapshot of the desktop' prior to loading to give the impression of transparent background, though I know you are aware of this... So as a consequence, and regarding the $If_exists statement, I was thinking more along the lines of $If_exists 'rotation', then 'reload conky' via another ${exec } ? call to an external start_stop.sh script, which should take care of the background issue?

If I had a reliable start/stop method, I could just put it in my rotate script. That's what I've been working on. Maybe I could write a script that handles the segfaults...hmmmm.


Hang on, shouldn't update_interval 1 ensure the correct background is loaded?

I don't know, but I'll try it. I had it at 4.

I've also considered including a 'run conky' button in the panel, but I really want to avoid that. It shouldn't be necessary.



If I can get this working well, I may write an AWN applet to handle rotation. :twisted:


BRAINSTORM: Maybe having something like "touch ~/.conkyrc" in the rotate script would work.

Edit: No, that doesn't work. conky is grabbing a new background for itself, but remember the problem is that it's not grabbing the right image. I suspect that it is grabbing from off-screen and getting only black. See:

http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn276/zacherysharon/desktops%20backgrounds/conkyRotateWrong.png

as compared to

http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn276/zacherysharon/desktops%20backgrounds/conkyRotateP.png

The problem with the second picture is that the setup that gets that occasionally causes conky to crash.

[SnickerSnack]

This really does not want to work. I finally got the background to update so that it looks right by adding


sed -i -e '1c \#lacrosse' /home/zsharon/.conkyrc

so the landscape script and


sed -i -e '1c \#periwinkle' /home/zsharon/.conkyrc

to the portrait script, which forces conky to reload since .conkyrc changed. But, it crashes half the time! The error:


Conky: X Error: type 0 Display 88a7820 XID 58720257 serial 493 error_code 16 request_code 10 minor_code 0 other Display: 88a7820

Here's the output of running rotatebuttonp (with a panel button) a few times:


conky
Conky: forked to background, pid is 13234
zsharon@Weierstrass:~$
Conky: desktop window (22000a9) is subwindow of root window (109)
Conky: window type - normal
Conky: drawing to created window (0x2600001)
Conky: drawing to double buffer
Conky: '/home/zsharon/.conkyrc' modified, reloading...
Conky: forked to background, pid is 13243

Conky: desktop window (22000a9) is subwindow of root window (109)
Conky: window type - normal
Conky: drawing to created window (0x5a00001)
Conky: drawing to double buffer
Conky: '/home/zsharon/.conkyrc' modified, reloading...
Conky: forked to background, pid is 13275

Conky: desktop window (22000a9) is subwindow of root window (109)
Conky: window type - normal
Conky: drawing to created window (0x3800001)
Conky: drawing to double buffer
Conky: X Error: type 0 Display 88a7820 XID 58720257 serial 493 error_code 16 request_code 10 minor_code 0 other Display: 88a7820

Is there a way around this X error?

Edit: It turns out that that's the same error caused by trying to restart conky by killing it first. Now, I just need to find out how to avoid or fix


Conky: X Error: type 0 Display 88a7820 XID 58720257 serial 493 error_code 16 request_code 10 minor_code 0 other Display: 88a7820

[bra|10n]

In the main conky configure thread;

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=281865

I think ddnev45 (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=393581) is working on something similar. You'll get more support and dare say common sense there also ;)

[SnickerSnack]

In the main conky configure thread;

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=281865

I think ddnev45 (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=393581) is working on something similar. You'll get more support and dare say common sense there also ;)

I was looking for that thread, but couldn't find it for some reason. Thanks!

Edit: I was able to get my main task done with the help I got in the conky thread that bra|10n linked to, but I still don't know why "killall -SIGUSR1 conky" wouldn't work well.