Can look of ical (calendar) be configured?

[Walt H]

Bruce,

I don't think I had to restart X. I ran the xrdb -merge command from an rxvt window without exiting out of X and things seemed to work fine. (I guess I'll know better when I launch Puppy back up tonight.)

As far as colors are concerned, I used color names (e.g., lightyellow, SlateBlue, etc.). Some colors like gray and Slate Blue also take number attributes (gray50 and SlateBlue3 were two I came across). If you add a number and that color does not accept such an attribute, you'll run into the blank box that I mentioned earlier. I'm pretty sure the numbers indicate the degree of shading, but I don't know why they work with some colors and not with others (purple, for example, which does accept light as an attribute).

[Bruce B]

I don't think I had to restart X. I ran the xrdb -merge command from an rxvt window without exiting out of X and things seemed to work fine. (I guess I'll know better when I launch Puppy back up tonight.)

That's right. If you weren't running the merge you would have to restart X to get the changes. My earlier post was acknowledging your technique which is a time saver.

Anyway, it would be nice to know what colors work. Thanks the number tip.

[Walt H]

I also learned that you need to edit .xinitrc to reflect the -nocpp flag from .Xresources.

There is a line that has the xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources in it. You have to add the -nocpp flag to that line in order for any changes to be permanent.

I haven't forgotten about posting my .Xresources file. I have a couple of things I want to try, and a mishap with a BBQ grill has caused a few delays. Tonight for sure.

[Bruce B]

I also learned that you need to edit .xinitrc to reflect the -nocpp flag from .Xresources.

There is a line that has the xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources in it. You have to add the -nocpp flag to that line in order for any changes to be permanent.

I haven't forgotten about posting my .Xresources file. I have a couple of things I want to try, and a mishap with a BBQ grill has caused a few delays. Tonight for sure.

Exactly what I figured. .xinitrc doesn't work right without the modifications. I guess we should post it as what we think is a bug.

[Walt H]

Okay, here it is, my /.Xresources file:

Code: Select all

Ical*Foreground: navy
Ical*Background: lightyellow
Ical.itemSelectBg : khaki
Ical.itemSelectFg: SlateBlue3
Ical.itemBg: lightyellow
Ical.itemFg: gray60
Ical.apptLineColor: navy
Ical.weekdayColor: navy
Ical.weekendColor: purple
Ical.interestColor: darkred
Ical.weekendInterestColor: darkorange
Ical.fontFamily: helvetica
Ical.fixedFontFamily: lucidatypewriter
Ical.weekdayFont: helvetica
Ical.weekendFont: helvetica
Ical*itemFont: helvetica

I haven't figured out how to add some fonts that are supposed to be in the system, like URW Gothic L. Pasting one of the entries from /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1didn't work. I guess I'd have to copy the font into the /misc directory and then add it to the fonts.alias file?

I also edited my ~/.xinitrc file to automatically launch ical on startup. Maybe it was just me, but it seemed where I placed that command determined whether ical lauched at startup or not, or maybe it was the way I entered the command ('exec ical' didn't work but 'exec ical &' did). I ended up placing the command right before the last two lines of .xinitrc as so:

Code: Select all

exec ical &
CURRENTWM="`cat /etc/windowmanager`"
exec $CURRENTWM

One other thing I discovered is not to edit the system xinitrc file in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit as that will get rid of your menu and task bar with no way to get them back. Doing that and also automatically launching ical caused Puppy to exit to a prompt whenever I closed the application. I had to go into MP to edit the file to restore Puppy. Thank goodness for a relatively easy to use, command line text editor.

[Bruce B]

I never thought to use.xinitrc for window manger startup programs. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks for the code also.

[Walt H]

Since I don't know a lot about coding, I'm glad I could finally contribute something useful.

[puppian]

Okay, here it is, my /.Xresources file:

Cool!
I've followed what you did and Ical looks much better now!
Are there any other apps that can be modified the same way?
Perhaps we can start a 'Puppy Beautification' project base on this

[Walt H]

By copying some of the font listings from the fonts.dir file in the TrueType1 directory to the font.alias file that X uses, I was able to expand my font choices and change the look of the text in ical even more.

I am currently using the AvantGarde font, which I like. the one problem is that longer month names are cut off on the calendar with this font because ical opens to a preset size when launching at boot up, and it cannot be resized in that state.

I've also been able to change the look of XCalendar, which, if I remember correctly, has its own configuration file where colors can be changed.

[MU]

Hi Walt, I did not have a look at ical and Xcalendar yet, but maybe Monthcal might be something for you.

It uses Gtk (wxWidgets) and so takes over the Gtk-Theme currently activated in Puppy.

http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic.php?t=2026

I develop Monthcol together with someone else, so we might add small changes if you miss something.

Mark