NAME
fvwm-menu-headlines - builds headlines menu definition for fvwm
SYNOPSIS
fvwm-menu-headlines [ --help|-h|-? ] [ --version|-V ] [ --info [site] ]
[ --site|-s site ] [ --name|-n name ] [ --title|-t title ] [ --item
item ] [ --exec|-e exec-command ] [ --command|-e fvwm-command ] [
--icon-title icon ] [ --icon-item icon ] [ --icon-home icon ] [
--icon-error icon ] [ --wm-icons ] [ --frontpage [where] ] [ --proxy|-p
host:port ] [ --file [file] ] [ --fake [file] ] [ --timeout seconds ]
DESCRIPTION
This configurable perl script builds an fvwm menu definition for
headlines of popular news web sites: FreshMeat, Slashdot, LinuxToday,
DaemonNews, GNOME-News, KDE-News, RootPrompt, LinuxFr, ThinkGeek, CNN,
BBC and more.
It is possible to specify a customized menu item format, change a
command (usually launching a browser) and add menu icons (there is a
support for the wm-icons package).
OPTIONS
--help
show the help and exit
--version
show the version and exit
--info [site]
if site name is given print the site specific info, otherwise print
all site names
--site site
defile a web site, headlines of which to show, this option also can
be used together with --help to get new defaults. Default site:
freshmeat.
--name name
define menu name (default is "MenuHeadlinesFreshmeat")
--title title
define menu title (default is "Freshmeat Headlines").
--item label-format
--exec command-format
define format for menu item or command (what is shown and what is
executed when the item is chosen). Default label is
’%h\t%[(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M)]’. TAB can be specified as ’\t’, but in
.fvwm2rc you should specify a double backslash or a real TAB.
Format specifiers for a headline format:
%h - headline
%u - url
%d - date in the native format (that site backend supplied)
%[strftime-argument-string] - date/time, see strftime(3)
the date/time is represented according to the local time;
date and/or time fields that can't be guessed are stripped
Example: %[|%d %B %Y| %H:%M %S]
If site supplied only date - this becomes %[|%d %B %Y|],
if site supplied no date - this becomes an empty string.
%{name} - site specific named value, like %{comments}
%(text) - arbitrary text, good for escaping or aligning
These specifiers can receive an optional integer size, positive for
right adjusted string or negative for left adjusted, example: %8x;
and optional *num or *-num, which means to leave only the first or
last (if minus) num of chars, the num must be greater than 3, since
the striped part is replaced with "...", example: %*30x. Both can
be combined: %-10*-20x, this instructs to get only the 20 last
characters, but if the length is less then 10 - to fill with up to
10 spaces on the right.
Example:
--exec "iceweasel -remote 'openURL(%u, new-window)' || iceweasel '%u'"
--command command-format
like --exec above, but enables to specify any fvwm command, for
example, "Function FuncFvwmShowURL ’%u’" not only Exec.
In fact, --exec="mozilla ’%u’" is equivalent to --command="Exec
mozilla ’%u’"
--icon-title icon
--icon-item icon
--icon-home icon
--icon-error icon
define menu icon for title, regular item, frontpage item and error
item respectively. Default is no menu icons (equivalent to an empty
icon argument).
--wm-icons
define icon names suitable for use with wm-icons package. Currently
this is equivalent to: --icon-title ’’ --icon-item
menu/information.xpm --icon-home menu/home.xpm --icon-error
menu/choice-no.xpm.
--frontpage [where]
add the site frontpage item to the menu. Optional value can be used
to specify where this item will be placed in the menu - ’top’ or
’t’, ’bottom’ or ’b’.
--proxy host[:port]
define a proxy to use. Example: --proxy proxy.inter.net:3128
--file [file]
write the menu output to specified file. If no filename is given
with this option (or empty filename), the default filename
WORK_HOME/SITE.menu is used. Without this option or with ’-’
filename, the menu output is written to standard output.
--fake [file]
don’t connect to the host using HTTP protocol, instead, read from
WORK_HOME/SITE.in file. The following reads input from freshmeat.in
(downloaded http://freshmeat.net/backend/recentnews.txt) and saves
output to segfault.menu (both files are in WORK_HOME): fvwm-menu-
headlines --site freshmeat --fake --file
--timeout seconds
limit a line reading from a socket to this timeout, the default
timeout is 20 seconds.
WORK_HOME of this script is ~/.fvwm/.fvwm-menu-headlines. It is created
if needed.
Option parameters can be specified either using ’=’ or in the next
argument. Short options are ok if not ambiguous: "-h", "-t"; but be
careful with short options, what is now unambiguous, can become
ambiguous in the next versions.
USAGE
1. One of the ways to use this script is to define a crontab entry to
run the script every hour or so for every monitored site:
0,30 * * * * fvwm-menu-headlines --file --site freshmeat
1,31 * * * * fvwm-menu-headlines --file --site linuxtoday
2,32 * * * * fvwm-menu-headlines --file --site slashdot
Then add these lines to your fvwm configuration file:
DestroyFunc FuncFvwmMenuHeadlines
AddToFunc FuncFvwmMenuHeadlines
+ I Read "$HOME/.fvwm/.fvwm-menu-headlines/$0.menu"
DestroyMenu MenuHeadlines
AddToMenu MenuHeadlines "Headlines" Title
+ MissingSubmenuFunction FuncFvwmMenuHeadlines
+ "FreshMeat" Popup freshmeat
+ "LinuxToday" Popup linuxtoday
+ "Slashdot" Popup slashdot
2. Another way to use this script (only if you have fast network/proxy)
is to run it every time you want to open your Headlines submenus.
(Note, the submenu that is once created is not reloaded, use "Reset
all".)
In this case your fvwm configuration lines could be:
DestroyFunc FuncFvwmMenuHeadlines
AddToFunc FuncFvwmMenuHeadlines
+ I PipeRead "fvwm-menu-headlines --site $0"
#+ I Schedule 900000 DestroyMenu $0 # reset generated menu in 15 minutes
DestroyMenu MenuHeadlines
AddToMenu MenuHeadlines "Headlines" Title
+ MissingSubmenuFunction FuncFvwmMenuHeadlines
+ "FreshMeat" Popup freshmeat
+ "Slashdot" Popup slashdot
+ "LinuxToday" Popup linuxtoday
+ "GNOME News" Popup gnome-news
+ "KDE News" Popup kde-news
+ "" Nop
+ "Reset all" FuncResetHeadlines
DestroyFunc FuncResetHeadlines
AddToFunc FuncResetHeadlines
+ I DestroyMenu freshmeat
+ I DestroyMenu linuxtoday
+ I DestroyMenu slashdot
+ I DestroyMenu gnome-news
+ I DestroyMenu kde-news
And finally, add "Popup MenuHeadlines" somewhere.
3. Here is a usual usage. Use FvwmConsole or FvwmCommand to run fvwm
commands from a shell script. Every time you want headlines from some
site, execute (give any additional options if you want):
PipeRead "fvwm-menu-headlines --site newsforge --name MenuHeadlinesNewsForge"
# this may take several seconds, you may use: BusyCursor Read true
Popup MenuHeadlinesNewsForge
HOW TO ADD SITE HEADLINES
It is possible to add user defined site headlines without touching the
script itself. Put your perl extensions to the file
WORK_HOME/extension.pl. For each site add something similar to:
$site_info->{'myslashdot'} = {
'name' => "MySlashdot",
'host' => "myslashdot.org",
'path' => "/myslashdot.xml",
'func' => \&process_my_slashdot,
# the following string is only used in --info
'flds' => 'time, title, department, topic, author, url',
};
sub process_my_slashdot () {
return process_xml(
'story',
# mandatory 'h', 'u' and 'd' aliases or undef
{ 'h' => 'title', 'u' => 'url', 'd' => 'time' },
sub ($) { # convert 'd' string to (y, m, d, H, M, S)
$_[0] =~ /(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d+) (\d+):(\d+):(\d+)/;
($1, ($2 || 0) - 1, $3, $4, $5, $6);
}, +0, # timezone offset; already in UTC
);
}
1;
AUTHORS
This script is inspired by WMHeadlines v1.3 by:
Jeff Meininger <jeffm@boxybutgood.com>
(http://rive.boxybutgood.com/WMHeadlines/).
Reimplemented for fvwm and heavily enhanced by:
Mikhael Goikhman <migo@homemail.com>, 16 Dec 1999.
COPYING
The script is distributed by the same terms as fvwm itself. See GNU
General Public License for details.
BUGS
I try to keep all supported site info up to date, but sites often go
down, change their backend formats, change their httpd responses, just
stop to post news and so on; the script in the latest cvs may be more
up to date.
The headline times may be off by one hour or more, since the time is
displayed for your local time zone, and the time zone of the original
time in the site backend output is often guessed (sometimes
incorrectly); similarly it is guessed whether to apply the daylight
saving correction.
Report bugs to fvwm-bug@fvwm.org.