Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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