User notification message handlers (was Re: [RP] ANSI escape sequences)

[Justis Peters]

Justis Peters address@hidden wrote:
> Shawn Betts address@hidden wrote:
> > What do other people think about this patch?
> 
> I think that these kinds of notifications really belong in a separate app, 
> like xmessage or xdialog.  I agree that there needs to be something that does 
> a better job of this (perhaps there already is?).  What would be really cool 
> is if we pulled the ratpoison message bar out into its own code that could be 
> called by ratpoison and by anything else that wanted to.  This way, the 
> message handler becomes modular.  For example, if I wanted to write my own 
> wrapper that logs all ratpoison messages, this would allow me to.
> 
> Other thoughts?  One of the things I like about ratpoison is how lean it is.  
> Having the message handler be modular allows people to go with the lean 
> (default) version or to upgrade to one they like better (without requiring a 
> patch to the core code).
> 
> Thanks for asking, btw.  One of the things I like about ratpoison is that the 
> features are based on community opinion (even though my tastes are sometimes 
> different).  Keep up the good work!
> 
> Sincerely,
> Justis Peters

Upon further research, I found "xosd".  I think this will do much of what was 
originally requested, without requiring ratpoison to become a catchall for 
displaying information.  Here's the link:
  http://www.ignavus.net/software.html

There are probably similar projects, but this one seems to be pretty popular.  
So far, I have configured it to read infinitely (until killed) from a named 
pipe and have started doing some history logging (in case I miss the messages).

This brings up a completely different question, though:  Would it be easy to 
have RP configurable so that we could use an alternate message handler 
(specified in .ratpoisonrc)?

Thoughts?

Justis Peters
Oculan Corp.
www.oculan.com