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An alternative application of xcowsay

October 31st, 2009

Recently I had a flirtation with removing all the non-free software from my Debian installs. This didn’t last very long: I got annoyed that I couldn’t watch iplayer with gnash, and blodgett reminded me that I had a copy of Vista running in VirtualBox. Ooops.

However, upon reinstating the non-free repository I installed the vrms package to remind me of my failings. Blodgett suggested vrms might be better implemented as a popup character like clippy. But wait! Doesn’t xcowsay do something very similar?!

Well, xcowsay has a --cow-size option that lets you select from small, medium, and large cow images. This actually just looks for a cow_*.png file, so if we created a cow_rms.png

rms_popup

Here we see Richard Stallman arising from the Humber like some terrible sea monster about to wreak destruction on the propriety software industry of Hull.

If you want to use this yourself just install xcowsay, vrms, and grab these files:

  • cow_rms.png – save this in /usr/share/xcowsay or wherever xcowsay is installed.
  • vrms-xcowsay – a script to invoke xcowsay with the output of vrms. Don’t forget to chmod +x it!

The script is very simple and looks like this:

(printf "I SEE UR USIN NON-FREE SOFTWARES :-(;\n\n"; vrms) \
   | xcowsay --font=monospace --cow-size=rms $*

I’m thinking of adding a --image option to xcowsay 1.2 to make things like this easier.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: xcowsay 1.2 now supports this via the --image option.

Minor xcowsay update

October 23rd, 2009

I’ve just uploaded a minor update to xcowsay: xcowsay-1.1.1. This version removes the debian/ package directory as I will no longer be distributed Debian/Ubuntu packages for future versions. This is because xcowsay will hopefully soon be packaged in Debian, and therefore Ubuntu, and they don’t like the debian/ directory in upstream packages. I don’t distribute RPMs either, but you can get these from Mandriva or Fedora if you weren’t aware. Thanks to everyone who’s packaged xcowsay so far!

I can’t believe it’s been over a year since the last xcowsay release! I’m planning to release a 1.2 version sometime in the next few months. This will contain some bug fixes (such as the multi-monitored cow splitting problem), and a few new features (such as word-wrapping text so the speech bubble fits on the screen). Any suggestions for minor improvements appreciated!

UPDATE: Now in OpenBSD too!

New xcowsay at last!

August 30th, 2008

I’ve finally finished xcowsay 1.1! The big new feature is dream mode — you can display images inside the bubble!

There’s also a new --think flag to make text appear inside a thought bubble as well. Plus there’s some bug fixes and even a Portuguese translation. What are you waiting for?! Get it here.

Also, I’ve changed the theme on the site! Minimalist, eh?

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Ideas for next xcowsay version

June 13th, 2008

These are some of things I’m thinking of adding for xcowsay 1.1:

  • Think mode: draw a thought bubble like cowthink in the original cowsay.
  • Dream mode: display images in the bubble.
  • Draw the bubble with Cairo and anti-aliasing.
  • Translations.
  • A few bug fixes ;-).

Thanks to everyone who downloaded xcowsay 1.0!!!!! :D

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Beta version of xcowsay panel applet

June 8th, 2008

I’ve written a GNOME panel applet based on the xcowsay source code. It doesn’t do much at the moment – click it to run xcowfortune.

If you want to try it out, get the source code here.

You’ll need to configure it with --prefix=/usr or set BONOBO_ACTIVATION_PATH for GNOME to find it.

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Telepathic Cows

April 17th, 2008

Next version of xcowsay may feature telepathy

Use case? IRC messages appear as cowz!!! Awesome.

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Another xcowsay release!!

April 17th, 2008

Yes yes yes!!! xcowsay 0.7 has been released!!!!

This version has:

  • A config file! checkout the man page for details
  • Can specify as many words as you like on the command line and they’ll all be joined together

Get it here!

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xcowsay 0.5

March 7th, 2008

The next release of xcowsay is out!

New features in this version:

  • Click the cow to make it go away
  • Specify the cow size with –cow-size=(small|med|large)

Get it here

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