[Danger Will Robinson - Extremely Geeky] X text display app?

[vin_petrol]

Odd 'X' question today that someone out there may be able to answer easily.

I want something that will display a window with some arbitrary text content in it. It really needs to support the "--geometry" option (or similar) so I can specify x, y and size. At the moment, I've got a slightly clunky solution which looks something like:

gnome-terminal --geometry 40x10+100+100 --hide-menubar --window-with-profile=monitor --command='/bin/sh -c "echo \"If you can see this the Discovery Channel stream may be broken\" ; read"'

Which mostly does the trick, but feels rather clunky. Plus, I would really like to be able to specify the actual window size in pixels rather than rows and columns (as each VLC Media Player window is configured with "--width" and "--height").

I'm really looking for something like:

x<something> --height HHH --width WWW --xpos XXX --ypos YYY --font Something --point-size PP --text "Something to display"

Why am I doing this? I've got a "wall of videos" application that's displaying a whole load of streaming media in VLC Media Player windows. The streams sometimes die, and it would be useful to display a text window 'behind' the window showing the streaming video. Then, if video disappears you'll see a text window that says something like "please check the Sky One stream".

The size and position of the video windows is all easily reconfigurable, and the whole "wall" can easily be started and stopped with new parameters, so I need commands I can run as part of this process.

Yeh, this can and is being monitored in other ways too: this is a handy way to get editorial staff to go round to the support staff who *should* be responding to emails about broken streams and poke them and go "what are you doing about the Sky One broken stream" :-)

I've got this horrible feeling I'm missing something really obvious...

It's a Red Hat Enterprise Linux install (RHEL 4, IIRC) but I can easily add stuff and compile from source if necessary.

EDIT: Solved! Big thanks to daeghnao, who pointed me in the direction of xmessage, which does exactly what I need.

Comments

[skinfitz.livejournal.com]

Wallpaper.

[vin_petrol]

Possibly. A pic should help:



Each window is an individual stream, and the position and content can be easily changed ("put that channel over there") so the wallpaper has to be equally changeable.

I did consider this. Generating a large image automatically from the configuration data using ImageMagick and placing it as the wallpaper. It does have potential, and may still be the way I solve this problem.

[skinfitz.livejournal.com]

I see - looks interesting - I'm wondering what is the purpose of your 'wall of video'? Just to be able to watch lots of channels at once? ;)

[vin_petrol]

I'm wondering what is the purpose of your 'wall of video'?

1) It just looks really cool! When people are touring the office we can point at a plasme screen covered in videos and go "and here are all the channels you could be watching on your mobile phone right now." It's the sort of thing that you put in a reception area. In the time it's been on test over the last few days loads of people have just stopped and stared at it. It's oddly compelling, although showing the FHM channel helps ;-)

2) It's a handy second-level monitoring tool. If you cannot see lots of video channels on the plasma screen then something, somewhere has gone wrong.

[vin_petrol]

Turns out xmessage does exactly what I need.

[steer.livejournal.com]

That is astoundingly clunky. Better surely to email the staff member in question if the app is not running? Launch each from a script which takes the streamname, display location and the email of the responsible person as a thing.

You could generate huge images of what you want to say and use "display" from imagemagick. Imagemagick has loads of good stuff in it anyway. There are various text2gif tools to generate the huge image!

[vin_petrol]

Better surely to email the staff member in question if the app is not running?

*cough* yes, and I'll certainly do that. However, how can I put this politely ... "servicing of emails concerning broken systems is not 100%" :-) This is a lovely visual aid, visible on a plasma screen in the office, that anyone wandering past can see, that says "I AM BROKEN". It's considered a useful feature.

You could generate huge images of what you want to say and use "display" from imagemagick. Imagemagick has loads of good stuff in it anyway. There are various text2gif tools to generate the huge image

Yep - already considered that. Generating a large image automatically from the configuration data using ImageMagick and placing it as the wallpaper. It does have potential, and may still be the way I solve this problem.

[vin_petrol]

daeghnao mentioned xmessage. Turns out this is exactly what I need.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Ah... didn't know that one!

[daeghnao.livejournal.com]

I _know_ there's a program that draws text on the root window for you, I've used it before. It might have been on the hard drive that crashed, though. But it would probably be better to pop up an xmessage in the right location when the stream dies instead - I'm assuming VLC exits when the stream dies, in which case you can just follow it with the relevant xmessage. You could even have different buttons for restarting, emailing a note or just ignoring.

[vin_petrol]

We have a winner! Thank you, xmessage is *exactly* what I need. I can specify precise size and position, and tell it to use a larger font size, and even not to have any buttons. Perfect! Thank you very much. I had never heard of this tool so this post was well worth it. I owe you a drink of your choice next time I see you.

I'm assuming VLC exits when the stream dies

Nope. It's running in demon mode so it sits there and waits for you to telnet to it and tell it to do something else. I'm monitoring its log files anyway and when the stream dies I just kill the process and restart another instance.

in which case you can just follow it with the relevant xmessage. You could even have different buttons for restarting, emailing a note or just ignoring.

It's a completely non-interactive tool, so this won't be necessary.

[minusbat.livejournal.com]

Did you not get the email I sent via 'social' ? Link to some source in there which does morre or leess what you want, and can be easily adaopted if not. Assuming you can stuill remember how to actually code :-)

[vin_petrol]

Did you not get the email I sent via 'social' ?

I did, but the crossover between 'social' and LJ is pretty small. You and me, and possible Graeme if he's still reading LJ.

Assuming you can stuill remember how to actually code :-)

Not in languages like C I can't. I've been programming Perl for the last 10 years. Pointers? What are they? They're like references you can do arithmetic with? How bizarre! :-)

[vin_petrol]

xmessage!

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

http://www.goof.com/pcg/marc/root-tail.html

[vin_petrol]

Still not quite what I need, but I have a winner now: xmessage.