131 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
131 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
title: "Calcurse Notifications"
|
|
description: "Configuring descriptive and attractive notifications for calcurse"
|
|
author: Amolith
|
|
cover: /assets/pngs/calendar.png
|
|
date: 2020-05-13T22:23:25-04:00
|
|
categories:
|
|
- Technology
|
|
tags:
|
|
- Calcurse
|
|
- CLI
|
|
- Notifications
|
|
- 100 Days To Offload
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
I recently started using [calcurse](https://github.com/lfos/calcurse)
|
|
for my calendar and one of its limitations is good notification support
|
|
in the generally accepted meaning of the word. The developer has [a
|
|
different
|
|
opinion](https://github.com/lfos/calcurse/issues/285#issuecomment-620841221)
|
|
and that's perfectly alright but traditional notifications are a feature
|
|
I heavily rely on and calcurse doesn't handle handle them very well; it
|
|
leaves the user to figure something out on their own. Inspired by [one
|
|
individual's
|
|
issue,](https://github.com/lfos/calcurse/issues/286#issue-608118188) I
|
|
did just that.
|
|
|
|
A quick glance at `man calcurse` reveals this section:
|
|
|
|
``` text
|
|
-n, --next
|
|
Print the first appointment within the next 24 hours. The
|
|
printed time is the number of hours and minutes left before
|
|
this appointment.
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
The output of running `calcurse -n`, for me and at the moment, looks
|
|
like this:
|
|
|
|
``` text
|
|
$ calcurse -n
|
|
next appointment:
|
|
[17:25] DnD on Mumble
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
It's all well and good but not really something you'd want in a
|
|
notification; it needs to be filtered down so it only shows the name of
|
|
the event, `DnD on Mumble`. To do this, I turned to the man pages of
|
|
standard CLI utilities `tail` and `cut`. `tail` allows us to filter the
|
|
output to only the last line[^1] with `tail -1`. `cut` is a little more
|
|
complicated but will allow us to remove the first few columns of text.
|
|
`cut -d ' ' -f 5-` is the next snippet in this one-liner. `-d ' '` tells
|
|
cut to use a single space as the delimiter, `-f` specifies the fields to
|
|
keep, and `-5` says to use all fields starting with the 5th because
|
|
there are a few spaces preceding the content we want. Chain all of this
|
|
mess together with pipes and we get:
|
|
|
|
``` bash
|
|
calcurse -n | tail -1 | cut -d ' ' -f 5-
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Great. Now we need to actually get a notification containing the
|
|
resulting string. This can be achieved by storing it in a variable then
|
|
using it with `notify-send`. You likely already have `notify-send`
|
|
installed if you're using Linux but, if you don't, I would recommend
|
|
looking around to see what's default and using that instead.
|
|
|
|
``` bash
|
|
CONT="$(calcurse -n | tail -1 | cut -d ' ' -f 5- -)" && notify-send "Calcurse Event" "$CONT"
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Now we're actually getting somewhere. With my setup, the notification
|
|
looks like this: 
|
|
|
|
It's certainly passable and sufficient for some but I'd like an icon so
|
|
I can see what the notification is for out of the corner of my eye and
|
|
decide whether or not to glance over. Thankfully, `notify-send` has this
|
|
built in with the `-i` flag.
|
|
|
|
``` text
|
|
-i, --icon=ICON[,ICON...]
|
|
Specifies an icon filename or stock icon to display.
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Now it's just a matter of figuring out what icon to use. You can
|
|
certainly pass the path of whatever image you want to it, such as
|
|
`~/Pictures/calendar-icon.png`, but I want something that fits in with
|
|
the rest of my icons. These are found in:
|
|
|
|
``` bash
|
|
/usr/share/icons/<theme>/it/depends/on/theme
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
I use [Suru++ Dark](https://github.com/gusbemacbe/suru-plus-dark) and
|
|
the icon I'm using can be found at:
|
|
|
|
``` bash
|
|
/usr/share/icons/Suru++-Dark/apps/32@2x/calendar.svg
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
It's different for Adwaita and all the rest though; you'll have to do
|
|
some digging. It's also worth noting that, if you don't have this theme
|
|
installed on another device, the icon won't show up.
|
|
|
|
After all that, here's my notification command and a screenshot.
|
|
|
|
``` bash
|
|
CONT="$(calcurse -n | tail -1 | cut -d ' ' -f 5-)" && notify-send -i /usr/share/icons/Suru++-Dark/apps/32@2x/calendar.svg "Calcurse Event" "$CONT"
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
This was posted as part of
|
|
[#100DaysToOffload,](https://100daystooffload.com/) an [awesome
|
|
idea](https://fosstodon.org/@kev/104053977554016690) from [Kev
|
|
Quirk.](https://kevq.uk/) If you want to participate, just write
|
|
something every day for 100 days and post a link on social media with
|
|
the hashtag!
|
|
|
|
[^1]: The opposite of `tail` is `head` and allows for exactly the same
|
|
thing in reverse: `head -1` will return the first line of whatever
|
|
input it's given.
|