Using a command table as wallpaper

-May 22, 2015 -

Recently I cleaned up my source code directory, removed a lot of rarely-used, dated scripts, and grouped the remaining standalone scripts into a central place (~/dev/scripts)¹. One thing I learned in this process is that I tend to write a reusable script but rarely actually reuse it (even if it sits on PATH), sometimes implementing the same functionality twice or typing a long command line over and over again.

To remind myself of which scripts are at my fingertip, I decided to use a command table as wallpaper on my secondary display. So I wrote a shitty Python script² (depending on XeLaTeX and ImageMagick) to automate the generation of such a wallpaper. It's pretty customizable, and anyone may grab it and do whatever they want to with it (also available as a gist):

#!/usr/bin/env python3
-
-"""Generate command table."""
-
-import argparse
-import os
-import shlex
-import subprocess
-import sys
-import tempfile
-
-# pylint: disable=wildcard-import,unused-wildcard-import
-
-from zmwangx.colorout import *
-
-DEFAULT_COLUMN_WIDTH = 120
-DEFAULT_FOREGROUND_COLOR = "white"
-DEFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR = "black"
-DEFAULT_FONT = "Consolas"
-DEFAULT_BORDER = 20
-DEFAULT_DENSITY = 300
-DEFAULT_SIZE = "1280x800"
-
-HERE = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(sys.argv[0]))
-XELATEX_PROGRAM = (r"""
-\documentclass[varwidth=\maxdimen,border={border}pt]{{standalone}}
-\usepackage{{color}}
-\pagecolor{{{background}}}
-\color{{{foreground}}}
-\usepackage{{fontspec}}
-\setmonofont{{{font}}}
-
-\begin{{document}}
-\begin{{verbatim}}
-{table}
-\end{{verbatim}}
-\end{{document}}
-""")
-
-def text_table(**kwargs):
-    """Generate the text version of the table."""
-    width = kwargs["width"] if "width" in kwargs else DEFAULT_COLUMN_WIDTH
-    directory = kwargs["directory"] if "directory" in kwargs else HERE
-    command_line = (r"find {directory} -maxdepth 1 -type f -perm -u=x -exec basename {{}} \; "
-                    "| column -c {width} | expand".format(
-                        directory=shlex.quote(directory), width=width))
-    ccommand(command_line)
-    return subprocess.check_output(command_line, shell=True).decode("utf-8")
-
-def pdf_table(**kwargs):
-    """Generate the PDF version of the table.
-
-    Returns 0 on success or 1 on failure. Generated PDF is "table.pdf"
-    in the current working directory.
-
-    """
-    border = kwargs["border"] if "border" in kwargs else DEFAULT_BORDER
-    foreground = kwargs["foreground"] if "foreground" in kwargs else DEFAULT_FOREGROUND_COLOR
-    background = kwargs["background"] if "background" in kwargs else DEFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR
-    font = kwargs["font"] if "font" in kwargs else DEFAULT_FONT
-    program = XELATEX_PROGRAM.format(table=text_table(**kwargs).strip(),
-                                     font=font, border=border,
-                                     foreground=foreground, background=background)
-    with open("table.tex", "w") as texfileobj:
-        texfileobj.write(program)
-    try:
-        ccommand("xelatex table.tex")
-        subprocess.check_call(["xelatex", "table.tex"],
-                              stdout=subprocess.DEVNULL, stderr=subprocess.DEVNULL)
-        return 0
-    except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
-        cerror("xelatex failed on the following program:")
-        cerrnewline()
-        cerrwrite("default", program)
-        return 1
-
-def png_table(**kwargs):
-    """Generate the PNG version of the table.
-
-    Returns 0 on success or 1 on failure. Generated PNG is "table.png"
-    in the current working directory.
-
-    """
-    if pdf_table(**kwargs) == 1:
-        return 1
-    density = kwargs["density"] if "density" in kwargs else DEFAULT_DENSITY
-    size = kwargs["size"] if "size" in kwargs else DEFAULT_SIZE
-    background = kwargs["background"] if "background" in kwargs else DEFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR
-    command_line = ("convert -density {density} table.pdf -resize {size} -size {size} "
-                    "xc:{background} +swap -gravity center -composite table.png".format(
-                        density=density, size=size, background=background))
-    try:
-        ccommand(command_line)
-        subprocess.check_call(shlex.split(command_line))
-        return 0
-    except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
-        cerror("the following ImageMagick command failed:")
-        cerrprint("default", command_line)
-        return 1
-
-def main():
-    """CLI."""
-    description = "Generate a PNG table of all executable commands in a directory."
-    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description=description)
-    parser.add_argument("--width", type=int, default=DEFAULT_COLUMN_WIDTH,
-                        help="""line width, default is 120""")
-    parser.add_argument("--directory",
-                        help="""directory containing executables, default is
-                        the directory containing this command""")
-    parser.add_argument("--border", type=int, default=DEFAULT_BORDER,
-                        help="""default is 20pt""")
-    parser.add_argument("--foreground", default=DEFAULT_FOREGROUND_COLOR,
-                        help="""foreground color, default is white""")
-    parser.add_argument("--background", default=DEFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR,
-                        help="""background color, default is black""")
-    parser.add_argument("--font", default=DEFAULT_FONT,
-                        help="""default is Consolas""")
-    parser.add_argument("--density", default=DEFAULT_DENSITY,
-                        help="""used for the -density argument of convert,
-                        default is 300""")
-    parser.add_argument("--size", default=DEFAULT_SIZE,
-                        help="""size of image, default is 1280x800""")
-    args = parser.parse_args()
-    kwargs = {k: v for (k, v) in args.__dict__.items() if v is not None}
-
-    fd, tmpfilepath = tempfile.mkstemp(suffix=".png", prefix="table-")
-    os.close(fd)
-    with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory(prefix="table-") as working_directory:
-        os.chdir(working_directory)
-        if png_table(**kwargs) == 1:
-            cerror("execution failed")
-            os.remove(tmpfilepath)
-        else:
-            os.rename("table.png", tmpfilepath)
-            cprogress("saved to:")
-            print(tmpfilepath)
-
-if __name__ == "__main__":
-    main()

By the way, the zmwangx.colorout module is here, just to ease the printing of progress and errors to tty. You may safely remove all the ccommand, cerr* and cprogress calls.

Here is an example wallpaper reflecting my current ~/dev/scripts:

Command table wallpaper for my secondary display (MBP 13'' builtin display).

The ~/dev directory stands for development, and contains all my source code and almost all local builds. The point is by having a ~/dev directory, I no longer need to have bin, include, lib, and share in my HOME, thus saving a few slots. Backing up and restoring is also slightly easier.↩︎
Yeah, I know it's a shitty script, so don't nitpick on style problems.↩︎