ROOTTAIL(1)

📦 version 1.2, in opensuse-leap 16.0

💖 NAME 💖

okay bestie, welcome to ROOTTAIL(1), from the General Commands Manual — this is the page for root-tail, which does exactly this:

root-tail — print text directly to X11 root window

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

root-tail [-g|--geometry GEOMETRY] [-fn|--font FONTSPEC] [--color color]
[--reload SEC COMMAND] [--shade] [--outline] [--minspace] [--noflicker]
[-f|--fork] [--reverse] [--whole] [--partial] [--update] [--cont STRING]
[--wordwrap] [--justify] [--noinitial] [--frame] [-id ID] [-i|--interval
SECONDS] [-V] file1[,color[,desc]] [file2[,color[,desc]]]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

So the vibe is: this thing displays a given file anywhere on your X11 root window. It is kind of tail -f for multiple files, but using your desktop background as the output window. iconic behavior, honestly 🌈

All non-option arguments on the command line are files to be logged. A null desc — example: "/var/log/messages,red," — will prevent the printing of a description and the []'s. 🎀

🌸 General Options 🌸

  • -g, --geometry GEOMETRY — this shows up in the synopsis as -g|--geometry GEOMETRY; the page doesn’t give it a separate extra blurb in this options section, so we’re keeping the name and argument exactly as listed. 💅
  • --color COLOR — use COLOR as default.
  • --font, -fn FONTSPEC — use font FONTSPEC. This can be either a fixed width font like -fn fixed or any font using -fn '-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*' with the appropriate fields filled out (see xfontsel). Specifying a different FONTSPEC before each filename will cause each file to be displayed in a different font.
  • -f, --fork — forks to the background.
  • --reverse — display the files in reverse order, with the newest lines at the top.
  • --whole — only display whole lines. If the last line of a file doesn’t yet end with a newline character then wait until it does before displaying it. This is the default if more than one file is being displayed.
  • --partial — this is the opposite of the --whole option (see above). It displays lines even if they don’t yet have a newline at the end. This is the default if only one file is being displayed.
  • --update — update partial lines “in place” if they are still on the screen when they are updated in their files. Using --update automatically turns on --partial.
  • --cont STRING — when partial lines are broken into two lines in the display, prefix the 2nd line with STRING. Defaults to "|| ". Specify the --whole argument to ensure partial lines are never displayed, or specify --update to attempt to “repair” broken lines in-place.
  • --cont-color COLOR — use COLOR when displaying the continuation string (as optionally specified with the --cont option above).
  • --wordwrap — the default behaviour is to fit as much as possible onto each line of output, even if this means splitting a word between one line and the next. The --wordwrap argument splits lines at spaces if possible.
  • --justify — after wrapping long lines, attempt to justify the text to produce a smooth right-hand margin. Implies --wordwrap.
  • --reload SEC COMMAND — re-display the file(s) and run COMMAND every SEC seconds. The default is to never re-display the file(s).
  • --shade — add black shading to the font.
  • --outline — add a black outline to the font (making redraws quite a bit slower).
  • --minspace — use minimum linespace even when using shading or outlining. This might result in leftover pixels (depending on font and logfile content).
  • --noflicker — use slower but flicker-free update.
  • --noinitial — don’t display the end of the file(s) initially.
  • -id ID — use the given window ID for output instead of the root window.
  • -i, --interval SECONDS — use the specified sleeping interval between checks instead of the default 2.4 seconds. Fractional values are OK.
  • -V — print version information.
  • --frame — draw a frame around the selected area. This is useful when trying to find the perfect geometry.

🧚 EXAMPLE 🧚

root-tail -g 800x250+100+50 -font 10x20 /var/log/messages,green -font
12x24 /var/log/secure,red,'ALERT'

💀 BUGS 💀

Some desktop environments open a virtual root window and make it difficult to share it. If you cannot see anything after starting root-tail, try to find a setting "allow programs on desktop" or similar, or manually specify a window id.

Should you happen to find any bugs please fix them and send me a diff. periodt 💅

NOTE: This program was modified by Marc Lehmann <pcg@goof.com>, who couldn’t reach the original author. Please direct bug-reports etc. to pcg@goof.com.

http://root-tail.plan9.de/

mwah 💋 this page is the 4.2 Berkeley Distribution version dated 2004-03-27, and the footer signs off as ROOTTAIL(1). 🫶

📦 where this page comes from