YJL

I have an old script to generate current clouds map using Xplanet. That’s two and a half years ago and I recently revamped it, so I could use dzen to show the clouds map.

The first one, xplanet.sh, which downloads clouds image and monthly Blue Marble 2004 as background¹. Xplanet combines clouds map and monthly Blue Marble image into one image, so you can display the merged image. The script won’t download clouds image often, it only downloads new clouds three hours after previous download.

I don’t recall I need to use configuration file, but this time I have to give configuration. There is a sample default configuration. I also add some commandline options for customization, such as changing font (-pango is required) and color, the position of label, the time. man Xplanet, it’s very useful.

The generated image shows the time since the clouds map is downloaded using -label_string "blah" with another script td.sh. I think this information is useful, because clouds map could be as old as up to three hours, or even older.

The second one, status-clouds.sh, I use it to convert JPEG image, which Xplanet generates, to XPM, the only color image format dzen accepts. This script also check time, it only runs Xplanet.sh after ten minutes from previous run for new image. Earth doesn’t spin that fast and that only updates the line between day and night, and some numbers.

The files will be stored at ~/.xplanet and /tmp/clouds.xpm. You also need mogrify and convert programs for image manipulation and conversion.

The clouds is smiling at you! :-)