nixieclock - a nixie tube desktop clock
nixieclock [ options ]
nixieclock displays a nice nixie tube clock on your desktop. It checks the time about every 30 seconds and updates, unless a seconds field is specified, in which case it updates every second. To move the clock, just click and drag it to where you want it. Press ESC to exit. nixieclock uses the FLTK graphics toolkit http://www.fltk.org/
As of version 1.60, a 'right click' menu has been added to the clock so that you can select some pre-defined time formats, as well as some other features. For macs with single-button mice, Ctrl-Click will also bring up the menu.
-a Always above other windows. (Not supported on all platforms)
-d Date/Time in numeric format, "12:55 01-01-2004"
-m (default) Month oriented date format, "12:55 Wed Jan 01".
-h Hour:Min format only, eg. "12:55"
-s "format" Use strftime(3) time and date format,
eg. -s "%H:%M %a %b %d"
-t Test pattern for alphanumeric display
-help, --help Display help
-n Do not run in the background
-b Borders. This enables window manager borders/decorations (which are normally off).
-nb No borders. This disables window manager borders/decorations.
-geometry "pos" X geometry specification, see X(7x)
-c epochtime Counts down to epochtime.
Use this for a countdown timer, where epochtime is
time(2) plus some number of seconds from now.
-N Disable updating the ~/.nixieclock file.
Allows you to experiment with command line invocations
without affecting your ~/.nixiclock settings.
nixieclock
07:57 SAT FEB 20
nixieclock -d
07:57 02-20-01
nixieclock -s '%H:%M:%S'
07:57:23
nixieclock -s 'THE TIME IS: %H:%M:%S'
THE TIME IS: 07:57:23
nixieclock -geometry -0-0
..positions clock at lower right.
nixieclock -geometry -5-5
..positions clock 5 pixels from lower right.
nixieclock -geometry +0-0
..positions clock at lower left.
nixieclock -N -c `perl -e 'print time()+3600;'` -s ``BEER: %H:%M:%S''
..sets a 'beer o'clock' countdown timer.
In this case, the timer begins a 1 hour countdown.
The sequence will be:
BEER: 01:00:00
BEER: 00:59:59
[..]
BEER: 00:00:01
BEER: 00:00:00
..when the counter reaches 00:00:00, it stops counting down
(the clock remains open). You can change the -s format string
to be whatever you want. Keep in mind the month/day/year info
will be meaningless in this context.
The -N flag prevents the ~/.nixieclock file from being
affected; often one wants a countdown timer only as a
special case that doesn't affect their normal clock config.
As of version 1.60, saves clock settings in ~/.nixieclock.
This way if you experiment with 'nixieclock -s' settings,
or move the clock around on the screen, those last settings
will be remembered. So for instance the next time you run
nixieclock without any arguments (ie. click on a shortcut),
those last settings will be used.
If you right-click on the clock, you'll get a popup menu
that lets you set a few specific time formats. Changes are
saved in ~/.nixieclock, such that the new setting is 'remembered'
the next time the clock starts. Any other time formats can be
achieved with the command line '-s' option.
If you left-click on the clock and drag, you can move it
around. The new position is saved (in ~/.nixieclock) so
that the next time nixieclock is started, it will open
in that new position.
For both UNIX and Windows, the TZ environment variable is
honored if set to determine the timezone used for the time
displayed.
So if you wanted nixieclock to show the time in GMT,
even though your locale might be different, you can use:
Unix:
( export TZ=GMT; nixieclock )
Windows:
set TZ=GMT && nixieclock
Changing the TZ variable this way will just affect 'nixieclock'
(and the shell the command is executed in), and won't affect
the rest of the machine. Safe to use in shell/DOS batch scripts.
Greg Ercolano erco@seriss.com
http://seriss.com/people/erco/unixtools/nixieclock/
strftime(3), X(7x)