paralogger - to set up a "root tail" window

paralogger [OPTIONS]... [FILES]...

Bourne shell script to "tail" the system logs or other text files in one or more borderless transparent Eterm(s).

-h, -help Show usage information.

-version

Show version and exit.

-v

Verbose mode.

-vv

Be more verbose.

-vvv

Be even more verbose.

-c [FILE]

Configuration file to use. If no file is specified then ~/.paraloggerrc is assumed.

-load

Load saved configuration file

-save

Save specified options to configuration file

-g

Generate a stand alone shell script that will run without paralogger. You should redirect the output of paralogger to a file if you intend to use this option.

-D [DESKTOP]

Which virtual desktop to use (default is 0) NOTE: This requires a GNOME-compliant window manager.

-H [LINES]

Height of the Eterm (default is 4)

-W [CHARACTERS]

Width of the Eterm (default is 80)

-xx

The base placement of the Eterm. Where -xx is one of the modes shown below (default is -br)

Your screen

------------- | -tl -tc -tr | | -ml -mc -mr | | -bl -bc -br | -------------

-vo [PIXELS]

Vertical offset of the Eterm (default is 0)

-ho [PIXELS]

Horizontal offset of the Eterm (default is 0)

The idea is that you should use one of the predefined base placements and fine tune with offset if needed. The use of offset is handy in some cases where you don't want the Eterm(s) to overlap your window managers decorations like icons, pagers, docks and iconboxes. Positive values move the base placement towards the center of the screen (relative to the original base placement). Negative values are not allowed.

-single

No cascading (tail all logs in one Eterm)

-vcas

Vertical cascade mode (default)

-hcas

Horizontal cascade mode.

-F, -font [FONT]

What font to use.

-f [COLOR]

Eterm text color. Either colornames or hexadecimal values can be used. (default is white)

Examples: lightblue, "#FFF000"

-shade [PERCENTAGE]

Darkens the transparent background (unsupported in Eterm 0.9.0)

-cmod [VALUE]

Overall color modifier.

-cmod-red [VALUE]

Red color modifier.

-cmod-green [VALUE]

Green color modifier.

-cmod-blue [VALUE]

Blue color modifier.

The cmod options are only available with Eterm 0.9.x. Please refer to the Eterm manpage for more information.

-tint [VALUE]

Tinting of the transparent background (unsupported in Eterm 0.9.0)

(With Eterm version 0.8.x you have to use the prefixed hexadecimal format. Example: 0x8080FF. Eterm version => 0.9.1 also understands colornames.)

-color

Use colortail instead of regular tail.

-nowait

Run the Eterm in the background (releases the prompt)

-nostop

Do not discard files to tail based on certain criterias. The default behavior is to discard certain files that are known to be in binary format and log files that probably are not written to at the moment. Following this scheme a file with a name like "messages.1" will be discarded. This is useful when you do stuff like "paralogger /var/log/*". Use this option when you do not want any files to be discarded.

Paralogger provides a mechanism for automatically saving or loading the options you pass to it at the command line. Just type in the options you normally use with paralogger along with -save and you can start paralogger with only -load the next time you use it.

Any additional options you specify along with -load will override that specific option from the previously saved configuration.

The configuration file used is ~/.paraloggerrc, if no other configuration file is specified with the -c option. If the -load option is specified, paralogger will first try to use the user-specific ~/.paraloggerrc and revert to the system wide configuration file /etc/paralogger/paralogger.conf if ~/.paraloggerrc does not exist.

Note that paralogger will always load the defaults that are hard-coded in the script before it loads the configuration file. Any options that are either specified on the command line or loaded from the configuration file will override the hard-coded defaults.

One added benefit of using -load is that there is no need to calibrate before the Eterm(s) is started because the previously saved size is already in the configuration file. One exception is if you have specified values for either height, width or font on the command line that differs from the values that are in the configuration file.

If the -color option is specified, paralogger will use colortail instead of regular tail. For each log specified, paralogger will check the file /etc/paralogger/colortail.map to see if there exists a colortail configuration file for it. If there is no match /etc/paralogger/generic.colortail will be used instead.

You can use your own colortail configuration files if you add them to /etc/paralogger and specify which log file name they should be mapped to in /etc/paralogger/colortail.map

If you make a good colortail configuration file for some specific log file, you are encouraged to mail the author for inclusion of it in the paralogger distribution :-)

Geir Torstein Kristiansen <gtk@linux.online.no>

Hallvar Helleseth <hallvar@ii.uib.no>

Tuomas Jormola <tj@sgic.fi>

http://projects.gtk.mine.nu

Report bugs to <gtk@linux.online.no>

Eterm (1), tail (1),