--- title: "Using a command table as wallpaper" date: 2015-05-22T00:48:19-07:00 date-display: 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`)[^dev]. 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. [^dev]: 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. 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 script[^shitty] (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](https://gist.github.com/zmwangx/b06aa923abf061b33fc9)): [^shitty]: Yeah, I know it's a shitty script, so don't nitpick on style problems. ```python #!/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](https://github.com/zmwangx/pyzmwangx/blob/41b0bffaad9439888d68097a85c7aed594240283/zmwangx/colorout.py), 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).](https://i.imgur.com/mccQu1e.png)