byobu: CLI status, notifiers, and detailed popups
When I demo'd screen-profiles at the Distro Sprint, sabdfl asked if there was a way to request 'more info' about particular notifications.
For instance, my current screen-profiles session tells me that there are (22!) updates available. Oh yeah? What updates are available? It also says that (@) a reboot is required? Really? How am I supposed to know that (@) = reboot required?
I have in mind a mechanism whereby each of the notifications in screen-profiles would provide the simple, few-characters which are displayed in the status bar. However, each status notification could also provide far more detailed information on demand. When a user wants to know more about some notification in the status bar, they indicated this by using some key binding. screen would then pop open a new window in the window manager, and run that notification with a --details or --verbose option. Each notification would be augmented to provide such data, as makes sense.
The current list of status items include:
* arch cpu-freq disk-used ip-address mem-available network-down reboot-required updates-available whoami battery date ec2-cost load-average mem-used network-up release uptime wifi-quality cpu-count disk-available hostname logo menu processes time users
What else should we add?
Also, byobu could be taught to handle notify-osd like events, popping open the message in a new window, and perhaps (?) expiring it after some time. Or perhaps keeping a running log of messages (twitter-like?).
:-Dustin
Blueprint information
- Status:
- Complete
- Approver:
- Rick Clark
- Priority:
- Low
- Drafter:
- Dustin Kirkland
- Direction:
- Approved
- Assignee:
- Dustin Kirkland
- Definition:
- Approved
- Series goal:
- Proposed for karmic
- Implementation:
- Implemented
- Milestone target:
- karmic-alpha-3
- Started by
- Dustin Kirkland
- Completed by
- Dustin Kirkland
Whiteboard
= Status =
Done.
I've added a few more features to Byobu, including an optional way to
configure Byobu to watch your notify-osd logs. I've added some new
status notifications. I've tremendously improved overall performance.
And I've dropped the dpkg-divert on /usr/bin/screen. Now, if a user
types "screen", they get the old-school GNU screen. If a user types
"byobu", they get "byobu". If a user wants to get "byobu" when they
type "screen", they need to `ln -s ~/.byobu/profile ~/.screenrc`
At this point, this spec is done, and any further changes to Byobu
should be incremental improvements and bug fixes.
-- Dustin Kirkland
-------
Discussion Points:
* Demo current look/feel/operation
* New notification brainstorming
* Support notify-osd?
* Support user-define custom status items?
* Detailed status -- how can this be improved? Colors?
* Support more than 16 colors? Dependencies on screen + term; would look *really* good!
* Additional keybinding sets; no one has submitted any; some people complain about default F-keys conflicting with (something); worth pursuing? wait for contribution?
* Internationaliz
-- Dustin Kirkland
* Adding a temperature status item would be nice. (DONE)
* As for keybindings, I'd rather use screen's default keybindings, I only use those keybinding:
bind @ screen -t help 0 byobu-config # C-a @ | byobu-config
bind R process r # C-a R | Reload configuration
-- أحمد المحمودي (Ahmed El-Mahmoudy)
== UDS Raw Notes ==
* F9 helper for more intuitive interface.
* Could use some help in improving the menus.
* What improvements can be made to the information bar at the bottom.
* Different colors for each status notification.
* Unique status notification symbols.
* Make the logo more like the standard Ubuntu logo if possible.
* More information available using Vim with folding.
* One of the most useful features is the tabs.
* Possible New Features:
* See information from multiple servers.
* Add functionality for an admin to extend status notifications.
* New profile for non-color terminals.
* May not be as useful for terminals without colors.