Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Argos Lets You Create GNOME Shell Extensions From Scripts (W/ BitBar Plugin Support)

| Date: February 28, 2017 | View Comments | Tags: bash, bitbar, cli, extensions, gnome, gnome shell

Argos is a tool inspired by the BitBar app for Mac, which makes it easy to create your own GNOME Shell extensions, using information provided via scripts.

Being a GNOME Shell extension itself, Argos adds a button with a dropdown on the GNOME Shell top panel. This button can display or expose functionality provided by a script, be it Bash, Python, Ruby, and so on (remember to make it executable or else Argos won't use it).

Here's Argos in action (gif via Argos GitHub page):

Argos GNOME Shell script extension

Translate Any Text You Select On Your Linux Desktop With A Keyboard Shortcut And Notifications

| Date: March 02, 2016 | View Comments | Tags: bash, featured, google translate, linux, notifications, script, ubuntu, zenity

I recently stumbled upon an interesting tiny old script which can translate any text you select. After highlighting the text, be it in a web browser, Libreoffice or PDF document and so on, upon using a keyboard shortcut, its translation is displayed in a desktop notification.

Google Translate notification Linux

Betty Is Like Siri Or Google Now For The Command Line (Translates Plain English Into Commands)

| Date: May 15, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: bash, betty, cli, linux, macosx, ubuntu

Betty is like Siri or Google Now for the command line. Well, sort of. The tool translates plain English into commands: it displays the command it runs and obviously, the command output, in the terminal.

Betty isn't voice controlled so you still have to type your (plain English) commands but if you want, it can speak the command output.

Betty command line

Liquid Prompt: An Adaptive Prompt For Bash Or Zsh

| Date: April 29, 2013 | View Comments | Tags: bash, cli, linux, ubuntu

Liquid Prompt is an adaptive, smart prompt for Bash and Zsh. It can display various useful information on the shell prompt, only when it's needed, like the battery status when it's discharging over a given threshold, an up arrow if using an HTTP proxy, the number of detached sessions  (screen or tmux) and more.


Post Installation Script "Fedora Utils" Updated For Fedora 16

| Date: November 04, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: bash, fedora, linux, scripts

Fedora Utils

Fedora Utils is a "post installation" script for Fedora which lets you easily install applications that are not available in the main Fedora repositories and tweak various settings.

Zenity For Appindicators: Ubuntu Indicator For Commands Or Bash Scripts

| Date: September 19, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: appindicator, bash, cli, linux, ubuntu, yad, zenity

WebUpd8 reader Reda El Khattabi has created a small tool that makes it very easy to create an Ubuntu AppIndicator for Zenity, YAD (a Zenity fork with many improvements) or basically any bash script or command.


Features:
  • supports submenus and separators
  • you can specify a custom icon
  • persistent mode or quit after executing command

Easily Install Extra Applications In Fedora Using Autoplus Or Fedora Utils

| Date: July 05, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: bash, fedora, linux, scripts

Autoplus and Fedora Utils are two "post installation" scripts for Fedora which you can use to easily install applications that are not available in the main Fedora repositories, such as Adobe Flash, codecs, Google Earth, Skype, Sun Java and more.

How To Display Network Upload / Download Speed On The Panel In Ubuntu

| Date: May 05, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: appindicator, bash, linux, network, scripts, ubuntu, unity

Indicator sysmon

Indicator-Sysmonitor (System Monitor Indicator) is a really interesting Ubuntu indicator because it allows you to display pretty much anything on the Unity (or GNOME) panel by using a simple command or a bash script.

(Speaking of Indicator-Sysmonitor: a recent update brought sensors support (make sure you install hddtemp and lm-sensors), but this post isn't about that)

Currently there is no AppIndicator to display the actual network usage as in the actual values on the Unity panel in Ubuntu. We have Indicator Multiload but it only displays a graph so I wrote a script for Indicator-Sysmonitor to display the network upload/download speed as well as CPU and Memory usage (Indicator Sysmonitor already has CPU and Memory usage but if you want to use a script, you must get your script to display the CPU and Memory usage independently).


Update: I've replaced "up" and "down" in the AppIndicator with up/down arrows (thanks to manequin for the tip!) so this is how it looks now:

System monitor indicator

Show Desktop Icon For The Ubuntu Unity Launcher

| Date: April 13, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: bash, linux, scripts, show desktop, ubuntu, unity

Show Desktop Unity

Currently there's no "Show desktop" applet / icon for the Unity panel in Ubuntu 11.04 and while you can use Super + D to toggle Show Desktop, many are used to using an icon for this. So here's how to get such an icon on your Unity panel.

Automatically Install All The Google Web Fonts In Ubuntu Using A Script

| Date: January 20, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: bash, cli, fonts, linux, scripts

Google Font Directory

Here's a script that can be used to download and install all the Google Web Fonts. 

Download The Ultimate Bashrc File

| Date: January 14, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: bash, cli, linux

The Ultimate Bashrc is a custom .bashrc file that comes with tons of aliases, functions and bash settings, all in one file. Here are a few examples: various bash prompts, sudo for entire line, apt history, various conversion functions like temperature, currency (based on Google) and so on, rip audio from video, bookmarks directories, copy/paste for the command line, convert any video to avi, cp with progress bar, translate a word using Google, Deb Extraction / Remaker (extracts a deb file & organizes for easy deb manipulation and repacking using "debremaker"), a "del" alias that moves the files to trash instead of removing them completely, a "site down for everyone or is it just me" function, various computer info and many more.

While you probably won't need everything in this custom bashrc file, I'm sure you'll find some very useful functions that you can use so go ahead and take a look - everything is very well organized and documented so it should be pretty easy to figure what everything does and what's required to get it to work.




Thanks to inameiname for the tip!

Y PPA Manager 0.0.4 Released With A New "Deep Search" Feature

| Date: January 12, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: bash, launchpad, linux, ppa, ubuntu, y ppa manager, yad

Y PPA Manager

Y PPA Manager is a GUI tool to add, remove, purge, list and search for Launchpad PPAs.

Today I've released a new Y PPA Manager version that adds a new feature: deep search. The regular Y PPA Manager search displays all the PPAs that the Launchpad search returns for the word you search for - that includes PPAs that don't have packages for your Ubuntu version, PPAs that only have the searched keyword in the description as well as PPAs in which that package was available but it has been removed recently.


Deep search

The new "deep search" works like this:
  • it scans all the PPAs returned by the Launchpad search and only displays the PPAs that have the exact package you've searched for available at the time you've performed the search
  • the Y PPA Manager displays the exact version for the package you've searched for as well as the PPA in which that package can be found in one place so you don't have to check the packages in each PPA to know the version of the packages returned by the search
  • "deep search" will only return packages available for your Ubuntu version (or whatever version you've specified in the config file)

Please note that the "deep search", just like the regular search makes use of the Launchpad PPA search so if Launchpad doesn't find a certain PPA, Y PPA Manager won't list it either. There's nothing I can do about this.


But enough talk. Here is a screenshot with an example Y PPA Manager deep search results for "nautilus":

Y PPA Manager deep search

Get Caps / Num / Scroll Lock Keys NotifyOSD Notifications Using Compiz And A Script

| Date: January 10, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: bash, linux, lock keys, notifyosd, scripts, ubuntu

lock keys notifications

Using this tweak you will get NotifyOSD notification bubbles when the caps lock, num lock or scroll lock status changes (you press a lock key).


One way of getting NotifyOSD notifications when you press the Caps Lock, Num Lock and Scroll Lock keys is using Indicator Keylock - which displays the lock keys status using both NotifyOSD and an appindicator.

But if you only want NotifyOSD notifications, you can do this without installing Indicator Keylock - by using a patched NotifyOSD provided by Leolik, a script and Compiz. This is a tweak Antoni "Pinguy" is using in his latest Pinguy OS 10.10 and he shared this tip with us so you can use it even if you don't want to install Pinguy OS.


Split Single Lossless Audio Files To Flac Or mp3 Using A Nautilus Script

| Date: January 08, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: ape, audio, bash, flac, music, nautilus, scripts

split lossless nautilus script

Some music players like gMusicBrowser (and many others) can't read .cue files so you may want to split those single lossless audio files into multiple flac or mp3 files.

Set Up Aero Snap In Ubuntu (w/ Compiz) Using A Script

| Date: January 07, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: aero snap, bash, compiz, linux, scripts, ubuntu

I've recently seen a screencast by gotbletu about setting up hot corners for the Compiz Grid plugin which is a lot like Aero Snap but better in my opinion so I wanted to make this very easy to set up for everybody. After using the script in this post, you can move a window to a screen corner by right clicking the corner in which you want to move the active window to.

"Aero Snap" for Ubuntu (using Compiz) is not hard to set up but it requires a lot of copying and pasting so I though I'd make a script to do everything automatically so to achieve exactly what you see in the video, all you have to do is run the script I've created.


Bur firstly, what does the Compiz Grid plugin do?

The Compiz Grid plugin can be used to tile, position and resize your windows to fit an imaginary grid. All you have to do is press Ctrl + Alt + Keypad numbers to place the selected windows; for instance: Ctrl + Alt + 1 will move a window to the bottom left corner, Ctrl + Alt + 7 will move a window to the top left corner and so on.

By default you can't assign a Compiz hot corner to the Grid plugin which would be really helpful, but you can achieve this by using a package called "xautomation" and the Compiz Commands plugin.

'Directory Cleaner And Files Organizer' Updated With Command Line Version

| Date: December 09, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: bash, desktop, linux, organize, script, ubuntu

A while back we've posted about a script called "Directory Cleaner And Files Organizer" that helps you keep various folders clean (such as your Desktop) by automatically moving the files by extension into folders such as Pictures, Documents and so on.

If you remember, I've mentioned it would be nice if it had a command line version so you could automatically run it at startup or in a cron job. Well, an update today brings a command line version of the Directory Cleaner And Files Organizer script.

Hide / Show Desktop Icons In Linux Using A Simple Script [Gnome]

| Date: December 05, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: bash, gnome, linux, nautilus, script, ubuntu

I was reading a post on Lifehacker about hiding/showing your Desktop icons in Mac OSX using a script and though: "hey, I bet this can be done easier in Linux". And so it is: EnLi has created a very small script that does just that: it can toggle your desktop icons on/off using a click for a distraction-free desktop.

YAD: Zenity On Steroids [Display Graphical Dialogs From Shell Scripts]

| Date: December 03, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: bash, gnome, gui, linux, scripts, ubuntu, yad, zenity

Those of you who like writing bash scripts and use Zenity for a GUI should give YAD a try. YAD (Yet Another Dialog) is a fork of Zenity with many improvements, such as custom buttons, additional dialogs, pop-up menu in notification icon and more. I've been using it for Y PPA Manager so if you want to see it in action, give Y PPA Manager a try.

Unfortunately even though Zenity is constantly updated, these updates only bring language updates and fixes. Here is where YAD shines: basically most of the stuff you ever wanted to do in Zenity is available in YAD: you can have as many buttons as you want, each with the text you want, a really nice icons dialog (which I've used as the main Y PPA Manager UI) and many more. Here's an example of a YAD dialog you could never get using Zenity:

YAD

Keep Your Desktop Clean With Directory Cleaner And Files Organizer

| Date: November 22, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: bash, clean, linux, organize, script, ubuntu

Directory cleaner and files organizer

In my search for a clean Desktop (because I got tired of cleaning it manually), I came across "Directory cleaner and files organizer", a script (with Zenity for a GUI) that automatically cleans any directory (and thus the Desktop folder) by moving the files to various folders such as all the pictures into ~/Pictures, the archives into ~/Archives, documents into ~/Documents and so on.

The script recognizes more than 470 extensions and the directories where it moves the files can be customized in the settings. Also, I'm using it for organizing my Desktop but you can use it for any other folder such as the ~/Downloads folder and so on.

Directory cleaner and files organizer has 2 options for cleaning: "Start-Cleaning" which moves all the files in the selected directory to the directories you've set in its settings, overwriting any existing files, and "Advanced-Cleaning" which is a smart way of moving the files:

2ClickUpdate 6.0 Adds Ubuntu 10.10 Support

| Date: November 09, 2010 | View Comments | Tags: 2clickupdate, bash, debian, linux, ubuntu, updates, zenity

2CLickUpdate

2ClickUpdate is a front-end for system updates that checks for and installs updates, removes unnecessary files and cleans up after installing the updates. It works on any Debian/Ubuntu based Linux distribution.

2ClickUpdate is a shell script with a GUI provided by Zenity that uses axel (similar to apt-fast) for handling the downloads (so the downloads are a lot faster then regular updates) and NotifyOSD notifications.

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