Queen BeeCon Widget

Contents

Overview and Description

Queen BeeCon Widget (See Talk Thread) is a highly customizable and flexible widget-based multi-instance monitoring and alerting tool.

The Widget is based on the execution of external Shell/OS Commands which can be either as simple as one-liner statements or as complex as articulated shell scripts, which, for example, fetch, parse and aggregate contents retreived from the system, other applications or the Internet.

There are two basic Widget types, Beecons and Snippets:

Beecons are small hexagonal cells whose background color or associated image/icon changes according to the executed Command Exit Status.

Beecons can handle virtually unlimited Command Exit Status:

  • <0 Normally notifying system errors in esecuting the script/command
  • 0 Returned when script/command successfully completes
  • 1 Used to report a warning condition
  • 2 If script/command needs to notify some application error conditions
  • <=126 Other exit status which can be handled for displaying user defined icons/images

Beecons can be either clustered/tiled to represent logically grouped beecons (or "BeeHives" :D ) or stacked to logically connect a parent to children Beecons.

Snippets are normal text/graphic boxes with fixed background color and images which is not influenced by the executed Command Exit Status.

Current Status in Maemo Repositories

(v0.1.4 extras-devel / v0.1.4 extras-testing)

Features List

  • Widget can be multi-instantiated, disabled and minimized on desktop (click on minimized icon on desktop will wakeup and maximize instance)
  • Possibility to define multiple commands and command labels to be displayed inside the Widget
  • Different types of Widget layouts and behaviours (currently Beecons and Snippets)
  • Possibility to hide the background Canvas both for Beecons and Snippets
  • Possibility to use icons/images instead of text both for Beecons/Snippets command title and output (with high positioning, zooming/scaling 5%-200%-FitToWidget versatility) ;)
  • It is possible to indipendently show or hide both snippet's images/texts and beecon images/texts. This way you can have two images and two text placeholders on widget, for more flexibility in graphic layout
  • Independent images/icons for Command Exit Statuses >=3 can also been specified. The display of this extended statuses is driven by Command Exit Status. Useful, for example, for displaying different icons according to percentages values returned by command.
  • Possibility to use different icons/images for Beecon's status output instead of just specific background color (Ex. 0=green led, 1=yellow led, 2=red led) (with high positioning versatility) ;)
  • Nice gummy "button-press"-like visual feedback using Gradient fill
  • Widget relies also on a private general purpose directories "~/.queen_beecon_dir/" & "..../MyDocs/.images/queen_beecon_dir/" as images/icons/etc. immediate storage. For easier population via USB of BLUETOOTH File Services.
  • Widget texts can be formatted through Pango Markup Language
  • Widget Size can be customized (Width: 10-800, Height: 10-420) and position can be fine tuned (X,Y +/- 5pix); Tweaking /usr/share/hildon-desktop/transitions.ini may also help. (snap_grid_size = 1 & snap_to_grid_while_move = 1)
  • Background color for Beecons can be customized for each 4 Command Exit Statuses
  • Background color for Snippets can be customized
  • Font Color of both command label and results can be configured
  • Position and Visibility of both command label and results can be configured (Hidden, Top L, Top C, Top R, Center L, Center, Center R, Bottom L, Bottom C, Bottom R)
  • Font Face of both command label and results can be configured (Nokia Sans, NewCourier, NewTimes, Monospace, Nokia Sans Cn, Nokia Sans Maps, Nokia Sans SemiBold, Sans, Serif, SwissA, Tanseek Pro Arabic, Univers OTS Arabic)
  • Font Style of both command label and results can be configured (Regular, Italic, Bold, Italic Bold)
  • Text Justification of both command label and results can be configured (Left, Center, Right, Fill)
  • Font Size of both command label and results can be configured (8->48)
  • Command execution can be triggered optionally on widget startup, by manual pressing on Widget, by desktop switching, by periodic updates (0=Manual, 30s, 1m, 5m, 30m, 1h, 6h, 12h, 1d)
  • Command execution can be subject to network connection status.
  • Tool includes a powerful Advanced Maintenance Dialog Box for command development and testing (TestDrive mode to display raw output of predefined or user-defined commands)
  • Advanced Maintenance Dialog Box includes extended functionalities like: instance export/import w/ checksum, command export/import w/ checksum, command update with current Test Drive buffer, clipboard operations.
  • A set of basic Images/Icons for Snippets and Beecon Statuses is included inside the distribution package and installed inside canonical hildon hicolor 48x48 directory
  • For Web and Proxy related issue please have a look to THIS post.

Settings and Tools

Advanced Settings and Tools

Known Issues

  • TBD

Now-Brewing

Change Log

TODO list

HOW-TOs

[HowTo] Import Procedure for Beecon Exported Instance Data

[HowTo] Copy Exported Instance Data to Phone's Clipboard

[HowTo] Export/Save Procedure for Beecon Instance Data

Easter Eggs

Published Beecons, Scripts & Commands

N900 Hard Sleep Mode

European Soccer Leagues Live Results and Next Matches Beecon

World Cup 2010 South Africa - Live Results, News and Next Matches

Naive Dice Roller

World Day & Night Zones

European Accuweather Meteo Beecon

MRTG The Multi Router Traffic Grapher Beecon

GMail: New Mail Notifier Beecon

Italian Ringroads (Tangenziali) Live Traffic Beecon

MLB Major League Baseball Matches of the Day (+tutorial/walkthrough)