COWCLOCK(1)

📦 version 0.3, in fedora 44

COWCLOCK(1) 💖 the CoW Manual, bestie

okay so real talk, this is the cowclock page from the CoW manual, and it's giving "tiny clock that lives on your desktop and serves looks". let's get into it 🕐✨

✨ NAME ✨

cowclock — an analogue clock for CoW 🐄🕰️

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

cowclock [-c path] [-h]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

cowclock is a resizable analogue clock. that's it, that's the vibe. no cap.

the system configuration gets loaded first, always. then — unless you passed -c — cowclock loads $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/cow/cowclock.conf or $HOME/.config/cow/cowclock.conf when they're present. and like, if you don't have a user config? not an error, bestie 🫶 there are usable defaults built right in, so it just works.

send SIGHUP to reload theme and presentation settings while cowclock is already running 🔄 and heads up: the initial size does not resize a window that's already being managed. so don't come for it.

by default, the face background, foreground, and font all follow CoW's current theme through the status socket. but if you set font and style settings explicitly, those override the inherited values — your choices win, periodt 👑 and if CoW isn't available at all, you get the built-in black-on-white defaults. iconic, honestly.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -c path — load overrides from path instead of the default user configuration. it's giving "I brought my own settings" 💅
  • -h — print usage and exit. short, sweet, slay.

🦋 CONFIGURATION 🦋

the configuration is line-oriented. blank lines and lines beginning with # are ignored. values that contain spaces may be double-quoted. easy!

  • size width height — set the requested initial size. both dimensions must be at least 64. no shrinking below that, sorry 🥲
  • minimum-size width height — set the minimum dimensions advertised to the compositor. the default is 120 by 120 pixels.
  • aspect-ratio true|false — preserve the ratio given by size during interactive resize. this is enabled by default. maximized and fullscreen dimensions are still obeyed though, so don't worry.
  • padding pixels — set the gap between the dial and the closest window edge.
  • font description — set the Pango font used for numerals. its configured size applies at the initial size and scales proportionally with the dial. proportional scaling? we love to see it 🌈
  • timezone name — display name from the system timezone database, such as Europe/London or America/New_York. use local for the process's original local timezone.
  • date-format format — draw optional date text below the centre using an strftime(3) format. an empty string disables it.
  • numerals roman|arabic|none — select Roman numerals, Arabic numerals, or no numerals. Roman four is rendered as IIII, matching traditional clock faces and xarclock. yes, IIII, not IV — that's the whole point 😌
  • direction clockwise|anticlockwise — set the direction of the hands and the order of the numerals. go backwards if that's your thing, main character energy.
  • ticks true|false — enable or disable minute and hour marks.
  • second-mode tick|smooth|none — select a once-per-second hand, a smoothly moving hand, or no second hand. with none, the display wakes only at minute boundaries. efficiency queen 💤
  • hand hour|minute|second length width — set a hand's length and total width as percentages of the dial radius.
  • tick major|minor length width — set tick length and width as percentages of the dial radius.
  • numeral-radius percent — set the distance of numerals from the centre as a percentage of the dial radius.
  • centre-size percent — set the centre pin radius as a percentage of the dial radius. zero hides the pin.
  • face-outline percent — set the circular face-outline width as a percentage of the dial radius. zero disables the outline.
  • style element colour — set an element colour. element is one of background, foreground, ticks, numerals, hour, minute, second, centre, or outline. foreground supplies every unset foreground element; a more specific style takes precedence. colours use CoW's RGB or RGBA syntax.

🔥 EXAMPLE 🔥

here's a whole little config that eats, no crumbs:

size 300 300
font "serif 12"
numerals roman
direction anticlockwise
second-mode smooth
timezone Europe/London
date-format "%a %d %b"
face-outline 0.8

style background 0x202020ff
style foreground 0xe0e0e0ff
style second     0xff4040ff
style outline    0x808080ff

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

  • cow(1) — the whole cow situation, iykyk 🐄

and that's the page!! this was version 0.3 from 2026-09-07, and it lives in the CoW Manual 💖 go set up your little clock bestie, she's gonna be gorgeous 🕰️✨🫶

📦 where this page comes from