allroy.de

::software

patching Window Maker

Just in case you wondered about the menu's transparency in some of the screenshots, here's what to do.
patch -p1 < ../trance.patch
Then go on with the usual ./configure, make and make install
The patch can be downloaded from http://vlaadworld.net. For newer versions of WindowMaker you could use this patch.

wmalbum

This nice dockapp controls xmms and shows the cover picture in your Window Maker dock. If you rip your CDs, store the mp3s in one directory per CD, download a picture of the cover somewhere (I use Amazon...) and copy it to the appropriate place, then this gives you the right pic for the right sound file.

If you want to compile this app you need lots of libraries, the ReadMe is rather incomplete. Install the devel packages also. Mandrake users need the lib* packages as well. Or just check out my rpm. But be warned, I am not responsible if it breaks anything or wipes out your hard disk. It was compiled on a box running Mandrake 9.2, other distributions might use different names for required packages. My rpm is signed with my GnuPG key.

To view the cover after double-clicking the dock app you need xv or xloadimage which wasn't part of my installation of Mandrake. Or just create a symlink to ee or any other image viewer in your personal bin directory and call it xloadimage.

image gallery

For the gallery I used McPics for some time. McPics is an image gallery written in PHP. There is other software, e. g. jigl, but I had problems to adapt it to my site. I also didn't like that it is using lots of html files. What I liked was the ability to write comments about each picture and that large pictures can be scaled automatically.

Recently i switched to FlatGallery, for no real reason at all. Just wanted to give it a chance.

tidying html

To clean files generated by word processors or others that contain errors, I use tidy. It cleans and modifies your html, xhtml or xml files according to the specifications of the W3C.

Downloading web comics

There are several comics on the Internet I like but I don't want to visit their homepages every day. That's why I use dailystrips to download them. That works quite nicely. But some time ago my ISP's ip addresses got blocked and I couldn't reach Userfriendly.org. I found a mirror for this site and added the following to /usr/share/dailystrips/strips.def:

strip uf_mirror
	name User Friendly (Mirror)
	homepage http://ufproxy.unfoog.de/www./
	type search
	searchpage http://ufproxy.unfoog.de/ars./cartoons/?id=%Y%m%d&mode=classic
	searchpattern 
Now I just call dailystrips uf_mirror instead of dailystrips userfriendly, plus options and other strip names. Works for me.

generating pdf files
Usually I write all my texts with Openoffice. That's why I don't need any special programs to generate pdf files. Sometimes I try to combine some scanned images to one pdf file. There are several web pages that gave me hints what to do in this case. I'm working on a small article and a script to get the necessary things done. Stay tuned. Before I forget, you could optimize your file running pdfopt old.pdf new.pdf, now parts of your file can be displayed while it is loading.
If you need to add some information to existing pdf files, you can use pdftk. Let's assume that you forgot to set the right document title, author's name and such. Insted of hassling with command line options, you write the necessary information in a file like this:
InfoKey: Title
InfoValue: Test
InfoKey: Subject
InfoValue: Your subject
InfoKey: Keywords
InfoValue: some, key, words
InfoKey: Author
InfoValue: First name Middle initial Last name

Save the file with an appropriate name, e. g. pdfinfo. Then type pdftk old.pdf update_info pdfinfo output new.pdf
 in a terminal and new.pdf has the updated information.