Re: [RP] Persistent Clock

[Joe Corneli]

I also wrote something that does this BTW -- check it -- might be
useful for those firefox sessions when you're under time
pressure.

You'll need to change paths around in the code.  The basic point of
this is to use your main Emacs to start another emacs that manages the
clock.  I suppose I probably posted it to the list before.

It is worth noting that ratpoison-cmd.el needs to be patched (I
probably pointed that out before too).

Joe

*** ratpoison-cmd.el   Wed Feb 23 10:38:50 2005
--- old-ratpoison-cmd.el   Wed Feb 23 10:38:45 2005
***************
*** 26,32 ****
  (defun-ratpoison clrunmanaged)
  (defun-ratpoison colon)
  (defun-ratpoison curframe)
- (defun-ratpoison defbargravity)
  (defun-ratpoison definekey)
  (defun-ratpoison undefinekey)
  (defun-ratpoison delete)
--- 26,31 ----

;;; run-ratclock.el -- core functions for `ratclock'

;; Copyright (C) 2004 Joe Corneli <address@hidden>

;; Time-stamp: <jac -- Sun Oct 10 18:19:35 CDT 2004>

;; This file is not part of GNU Emacs, but it is distributed under
;; the same terms as GNU Emacs.

;; GNU Emacs is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
;; it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published
;; by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your
;; option) any later version.

;; GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
;; GNU General Public License for more details.

;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
;; along with GNU Emacs; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
;; Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
;; Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

;;; Commentary:

;; I tried to have the same file (ratclock.el) be reloaded by the
;; "inferior" emacs process called in `ratclock', but that didn't work
;; out, so I'm breaking the core functionality off into this separate
;; file.

;;; Code:


(load "/Users/arided/site-lisp/ratpoison.el")
(load "/Users/arided/site-lisp/ratpoison-cmd.el")

(defun run-ratclock ()
  (while t
    (ratpoison-echo (current-time-string))
    (sleep-for 1)))

(defun run-ratyow ()
  (while t
    (ratpoison-defbargravity (1+ (random 9)))
    (ratpoison-echo (with-temp-buffer (yow t nil)
                                      (let ((fill-column 30))
                                        (fill-region (point-min) (point-max)))
                                      (buffer-string)))
    (sleep-for 3)))

;; run-ratclock.el ends here

;;; ratclock.el -- clock and amusements for ratpoison bar

;; Copyright (C) 2004 Joe Corneli <address@hidden>

;; Time-stamp: <jac -- Thu Oct 14 16:25:42 CDT 2004>

;; This file is not part of GNU Emacs, but it is distributed under
;; the same terms as GNU Emacs.

;; GNU Emacs is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
;; it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published
;; by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your
;; option) any later version.

;; GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
;; GNU General Public License for more details.

;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
;; along with GNU Emacs; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
;; Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
;; Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

;;; Commentary:

;; This code lets you run asynchonous processes that display in the RP
;; bar. For example, you can use the bar to display a ticking clock.
;;
;; In fact, there is nothing to prevent you from using the code here
;; to run other kinds of asynchronous processes. The code could be
;; trivially rewritten so that `start-ratclock' was called
;; `run-asynchronously'.  But the function so-defined probably
;; wouldn't be useful for much.  All truly ratpoison-specific code is
;; in the accompanying file run-ratclock.el.
;;
;; It would be good to provide a way for the `ratclock' command to be
;; used by outside programs e.g. so that you could toggle the clock on
;; and off from within ratpoison by running ":ratclock".  Probably
;; emacsclient is the way to go.  This could provide a cheap way to do
;; "Embedded Emacs" for Ratpoison.

;;; Code:

(defvar ratclock-clock-on nil)

(defvar ratclock-bargravity 3)

;; How to get asynchronous behavior for real?  (I guess wait for some
;; later version of Emacs?)  This way is just sort of annoying.
;; Instead of a shell command, we could have a call that returns a
;; thread id that could be used to e.g. kill that thread off later.
;;
;; One specific detail that I would like to change would be to have no
;; message about the abnormal exit of that emacs.  Should be easy
;; enough to do with options to `shell-command', right??
;;
;; Another approach would probably be to use Emacsclient and issue the
;; `kill-emacs' command from within the "inferior" emacs that has been
;; started here.  (Which gives me another idea: is it possible to run
;; an emacs lisp interpreter as a legitimate inferior process, like
;; you can run CLISP for example?  I guess you could use the *scratch*
;; buffer for this purpose, but that seems sort of dumb.)
(defun ratclock ()
  "Toggle the display of a ticking clock in the ratpoison message bar."
  (interactive)
  (if ratclock-clock-on
      (kill-ratclock)
    (start-ratclock "ratclock")))

(defun ratyow ()
  "Toggle the display of random zippyisms in the bar.
The bar's gravity is also randomized for each new zippyism, but
returns to the usual setting when `ratyow' is turned off."
  (interactive)
  (if ratclock-clock-on
      ;; turn it off
      (progn
        (ratpoison-defbargravity ratclock-bargravity)
        (kill-ratclock))
    (setq ratclock-bargravity (ratpoison-defbargravity))
    (start-ratclock "ratyow")))

(defun start-ratclock (style)
  "Turn on ratclock, in given STYLE."
  ;; we need to do something to deal with the "*Async Shell Command*"
  ;; buffer that pops up.  This is simple and seems to work fine.  On
  ;; a faster machine it might not work (?).  One should be able to
  ;; tell `shell-command' *not* to pop up the buffer; this doesn't
  ;; appear to be readily possible.  A "missing feature" bug in Emacs
  ;; I think.
  (let ((winconf (current-window-configuration)))
    (shell-command (concat "emacs -batch -q --no-site-file "
                           "-l /Users/arided/site-lisp/run-ratclock.el "
                           "-f run-" style 
                           " &") nil)
    (set-window-configuration winconf)
    ;; Yes, this _does_ cause a problem.
    ;; really, this is not the right way
    ;; to start another process, I guess.
    ;; Ah - but it isn't _really_ necessary to kill this buffer either.
    ;(kill-buffer "*Async Shell Command*")
    (setq ratclock-clock-on t)))

(defun kill-ratclock ()
  "Turn off ratclock."
  (with-temp-buffer
    (setq ratclock-clock-on nil)
    (insert (shell-command-to-string "ps -w -w"))
    (goto-char (point-min))
    (when (search-forward-regexp 
           ;; identify the process ID of the run-ratclock.el-associated process
           "\\s-\\([0-9]*\\).*[0-9][0-9] emacs.*run-ratclock.*" nil t)
      ;; kill the processes
      (shell-command (concat "kill -KILL " (match-string 1))))))

;;; ratclock.el ends here