This plugin cyclically spawns the indicated script/program, captures its output (stdout) and displays the resulting string into the panel.
The string can also contain markup to displayed an image, a bar, a button and a personalized tooltip.
If you want the plugin to display only text (original version), enter the command in the Command field of the Properties section of the plugin.
XML Tags
If you want the plugin to display a personalized Image
or Tooltip
or Bar
or Button
, you should develop (or get) a script returning a XML string, and enter the path of this script in the Command field of the Property section of the plugin.
The XML tags which can be used:
<txt>Text to display</txt>
<img>Path to the image to display</img>
<tool>Tooltip text</tool>
<bar>Pourcentage to display in the bar</bar>
<click>The command to be executed when clicking on the image</click>
<txtclick>The command to be executed when clicking on the text</txtclick>
If None of the tags are detected in the result of the command, the plugin returns to its original behaviour (displaying the result of the command).
Example Script
Here's a simple example of a plugin displaying the Temp of the CPU in the panel (with an icon) and the Freq in a Tooltip:
#!/bin/bash echo "<img>/usr/share/icons/Bluecurve/16x16/apps/gnome-monitor.png</img>" declare -i cpuFreq cpuFreq=$(cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "cpu MHz" | sed 's/\ \ */ /g' | cut -f3 -d" " | cut -f1 -d".") if [ $cpuFreq -ge 1000 ] then cpu=$(echo $cpuFreq | cut -c1).$(echo $cpuFreq | cut -c2)GHz else cpu=${cpuFreq}MHz fi echo "<txt>"$(cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THM/temperature | sed 's/\ \ */ /g' | cut -f2 -d" ")" C</txt>" echo "<tool>Freq: "$cpu"</tool>"
PS: Depending on your configuration, you should change the image path.
More scripts are available at: http://git.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-genmon-plugin/tree/scripts.
Pango Markups in the <txt> tag
Both the <txt> and <tool> tags support Pango Markups. See: https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html. With Pango markups, you can change text attributes like font colour, weight, size, etc, in your output string. To do so, use the <span></span> tag within the <txt></txt> or <tool></tool> tags. For example, to display the output in bold red, you could use something like:
echo "<txt><span weight='Bold' fgcolor='Red'>Test</span></txt>"
Refer to the previous link for information on all of the properties that can be set.
Refreshing the plugin
The xfce4-genmon-plugin now supports xfce4-panel plugin-event functionality. Currently it only supports the “refresh” action which resets the timer and causes the associated command to execute again. You can use this command remotely or at the end of a script to force the panel plugin to refresh.
To refresh the plugin, issue the command:
xfce4-panel --plugin-event=genmon-X:refresh:bool:true
where “genmon-X” is the widget name of the particular genmon instance. To get this name, go to the panel properties screen and on the Items tab, hover your mouse over the genmon plugin to get it's internal name.
Enhanced Gtk3 CSS Styling Capabilities
CSS styling capabilities have been enhanced by providing style classes for all elements of the plugin that can be styled via themes or individual overrides (~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css). For more information, see: https://git.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-genmon-plugin/tree/CSS%20Styling.txt.
(*dev-only) functionality is currently only available in the git tree and has not yet been officially released
In this example, the plugin is used to (from left to right):
In this example, we see the gmail checker script in action:
In this example, we see the sysstat script in action:
In this example, we see the google calendar checker script in action:
In this example, we see the twit (Twitter Timeline Notifier) script in action:
Most of the scripts are available in the plugin archive.
Bugs should be reported to the Xfce bug tracking system.
The normal (and best) way to get this plugin is to use the package manager or port system of your operating system.
If it isn't available there, or if you want a different version, you can download it in source form from http://archive.xfce.org/src/panel-plugins/xfce4-genmon-plugin/.