Custom Scripts

This file will present all the executable scripts I wrote. It is also their original source code, all the following code snippets are exported and tangled from this file to the actual executables.

Autostart

Because I sometimes switch from window manager to window manager, creating a script that handles by itself autostarting things for me is way easier than rewriting every time the autostart part of my configuration. As you can every instance will be launched asynchronously, and only if there is no other instance of said command running.

Command	Arguments	Run once?
pactl	load-module module-switch-on-connect
mpc	stop	no
xrdb	-merge "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/X11/Xresources	no
picom		yes
numlockx	on	yes
xfce-polkit		yes
nm-applet		yes
xwallpaper	--zoom "$(cat "$HOME"/.cache/wallpaper)"	no
xss-lock	plock	yes
/usr/lib/kdeconnectd		yes
dunst		yes

I also have an external sound card, a Scarlet 2i2 G3, that I would like to use as my default audio output. However, it might not be always connected, hence the following code:

SOUNDCARD=$(pactl list short sinks | grep "Focusrite")
if [[ -n $SOUNDCARD ]]; then
    pactl set-default-sink "$(echo "$SOUNDCARD" | awk '{print $2}')"
fi

cli utilities

Backup

backup is a very simple, one-liner script that will create a local copy of a file and add the date at which it was copied in the filename. You can see its source code here:

cp -r "$1" "$1.bak.$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)"

CPU Scaling

As I am using a laptop, maximum performance isn’t always what I want. Sometimes, it’s just better to have not so great but less battery-demanding performance. It is possible to achieve this by modifying the CPU governor with cpupower. The Arch Wiki has, as usual, some superb documentation on this.

The following script asks the user through rofi which governor to apply, and it relies on askpass to retrieve the user’s password.

governors=("performance" "powersave" "userspace" "ondemand" "conservative" "schedutil")
governor=$(printf "%s\n" "${governors[@]}" | rofi -dmenu)
sudo -A cpupower frequency-set -g "$governor"

docker-running

As with mu-unread below, docker-running is a small and simple utility for my StumpWM configuration which indicates how many Docker containers are currently running.

NB_CONTAINERS=$(docker ps -q | wc -l | tr -d '\n')
printf "^f3^f0 %d" $NB_CONTAINERS

Kamoji Generator

This script comes straight from this blog post and generates kamoji. I modified it a bit in order to work with either xclipboard or wl-copy depending on whether I am in an X.org session or a Wayland session.

Note that it requires the OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable to be set with a valid OpenAI key.

# If the user passes '-h', '--help', or 'help' print out a little bit
# of help. text.
case "$1" in
    "-h" | "--help" | "help")
        printf 'Generate kaomojis on request.\n\n'
        printf 'Usage: %s [kind]\n' "$(basename "$0")"
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

# The user can pass an argument like "bear" or "angry" to specify the
# general kind of Kaomoji produced.
sentiment=""
if [[ $1 != "" ]]; then
    sentiment=" $1"
fi

# Ask mods to generate Kaomojis. Save the output in a variable.
kaomoji="$(mods "generate 10${sentiment} kaomojis. Number them and put each one on its own line.")"
if [[ $kaomoji == "" ]]; then
    exit 1
fi

# Pipe mods output to gum, so the user can choose the perfect kaomoji.
# Save that choice in a variable. Also note that we're using cut to
# drop the item number in front of the Kaomoji.
choice="$(echo "$kaomoji" | gum choose | cut -d ' ' -f 2)"
if [[ $choice == "" ]]; then
    exit 1
fi

# If the current session is Wayland, copy with wl-copy, otherwise copy
# with xclipboard
if [ "$XDG_SESSION_TYPE" = "wayland" ]
then printf '%s' "$choice" | wl-copy # Wayland
else printf '%s' "$choice" | xclip -sel clip # X11
fi

# We're done!
printf 'Copied %s to the clipboard\n' "$choice"

mu-unread

mu-unread is a very simple utility that simply returns the amount of unread emails I have through the use of mu.

As you can see, the output string contains two font switchers for StumpWM so I can switch from the main font to Siji for the character contained between them: U+E072 (an email icon).

UNREAD=$(mu find "flag:unread AND (maildir:/Inbox OR maildir:/Junk)" | wc -l)
printf "^f2^f0%s" "$UNREAD"

screenshot

This is a utility only useful with Wayland for now, using grim, slurp (in order to select which area of the screen I wish to capture) and wl-copy (from wl-clipboard). It saves the screenshot in my $HOME/Pictures/Screenshots directory with a name formatted as Screenshot_20230425_134550.png if the screenshot was taken on the 25th of April 2023 at 1:45:50PM. If the file already exists, the script will suffix the name with an underscore followed by an incremental number like Screenshot_20230425_134550_1.png or Screenshot_20230425_134550_2.png.

If the argument select is passed to screenshot, as in screenshot select, then use slurp to select the area to capture.

OUTFILE_BASE="$HOME/Pictures/Screenshots/Screenshot_$(date +%Y%m%d)_$(date +%H%M%S)"
OUTFILE="$OUTFILE_BASE.png"
SUFFIX=0

while getopts ':cd:egs' OPTION; do
    case "$OPTION" in
        c )
            COPY="yes"
            ;;
        d )
            DELAY="$OPTARG"
            ;;
        e )
            EDIT="yes"
            ;;
        g )
            GIMP="yes"
            ;;
        s )
            SELECT="yes"
            ;;
        ? )
            echo "Usage: $(basename "$0") [-c] [-d DELAY] [-e] [-g] [-s]"
            exit 1
            ;;
    esac
done

if [ "$SELECT" = "yes" ]
then AREA="$(slurp)"
fi

if [ -n "$DELAY" ]
then sleep "$DELAY"
fi

if [ "$SELECT" = "yes" ]
then grim -g "$AREA" "$OUTFILE"
else grim "$OUTFILE"
fi

if [ "$EDIT" = "yes" ]
then swappy -f "$OUTFILE" -o "$OUTFILE"
fi

if [ "$GIMP" = "yes" ]
then gimp "$OUTFILE"
fi

if [ "$COPY" = "yes" ]
then wl-copy < "$OUTFILE"
fi

# wl-copy < "$OUTFILE"

sshbind

Something that I did not know for quite some time, but that is actually crazy useful about SSH is its ability to bind locally the port of a remote machine, and vice versa. The syntax is actually very simple, but I prefer a more intuitive way of writing it. Its usage is sshbind PORT FROMHOST TOHOST.

ssh -L "$1:$3:$1" "$2" -N

Nsxiv key handler

One thing I like with nsxiv is you can trigger different behaviours based on keypresses. For instance, with my current nsxiv configuration, if I press the space key followed by a character, it can delete to the trashcan, delete definitively, or open the current image in GIMP. All of that is done through one script file stored in $HOME/.config/nsxiv/exec/key-handler. The fact it reacts to first thespace bar instead of Ctrl-x is because I use a custom version of nsxiv I first modified to fit the bépo layout, and then I decided to change the prefix to fit how I use Emacs and StumpWM. You can read the PKGBUILD and my nsxiv patch in my dotfiles repo.

while read file
    set -g FILES "$file" $FILES
end

switch "$argv[1]"
    case "d"
        trash $FILES
    case "D"
        rm $FILES
    case "g"
        gimp $FILES
    case "j"
        for f in $FILES
            set basename (echo "$f" | sed 's/\.[^.]*$//')
            convert "$f" "$basename.jpg"
        end
    case "r"
        for f in $FILES
            convert -rotate 90 "$f" "$f"
        end
    case "R"
        for f in $FILES
            convert -rotate 270 "$f" "$f"
        end
    case "y"
        set FILE "$FILES[1]"
        set TYPE (file -i "$FILE" | sed -r 's|.*(image/[a-z]+);.*|\1|')
        xclip -sel clip -t "$TYPE" -i "$FILE"
end

Here is a step by step explanation of the source code. First, we want to store in the variable FILES all the files marked in nsxiv. This is done with a while loop and the read command.

while read file
    set -g FILES "$file" $FILES
end

We can then read from the first member of argv which key the user pressed. Depending on it, we can choose what to execute.

switch "$argv[1]"
    case "d"
        trash $FILES
    case "D"
        rm $FILES
    case "g"
        gimp $FILES
    case "j"
        for f in $FILES
            set basename (echo "$f" | sed 's/\.[^.]*$//')
            convert "$f" "$basename.jpg"
        end
    case "r"
        for f in $FILES
            convert -rotate 90 "$f" "$f"
        end
    case "R"
        for f in $FILES
            convert -rotate 270 "$f" "$f"
        end
    case "y"
        set FILE "$FILES[1]"
        set TYPE (file -i "$FILE" | sed -r 's|.*(image/[a-z]+);.*|\1|')
        xclip -sel clip -t "$TYPE" -i "$FILE"
end

The first option with the letter d is to move the file to the trash can. For this, we use the trash command from trash-cli.

case "d"
    trash $FILES

In case we want to definitively delete a file without using the trash can, we can use rm instead when we press the D key.

case "D"
    rm $FILES

It’s not rare I want to modify an image I have open in nsxiv, especially since screenshots are automatically open in this image viewer aften they are taken. In that case, a simple command will do.

case "g"
    gimp $FILES

Often, I use nsxiv to convert an image to a JPEG file, because my internet connection is not that great and JPEG screenshots are faster to upload than PNG screenshots. So what I do is for each file selected, I take the base name of the file (i.e. remove its extension), and then I use the convert command from imagemagik to convert it from its original format to a JPG format — imagemagik detects the formats based on the extension.

case "j"
    for f in $FILES
        set basename (echo "$f" | sed 's/\.[^.]*$//')
        convert "$f" "$basename.jpg"
    end

I have two commands to rotate my files, and both only differ by the angle of rotation. Once again I rely on convert in both cases. To rotate clockwise, this is the code needed.

case "r"
    for f in $FILES
        convert -rotate 90 "$f" "$f"
    end

On the other hand, to rotate counter-clockwise, we need this code:

case "R"
    for f in $FILES
        convert -rotate 270 "$f" "$f"
    end

Lastly, when I want to copy a file, I just hit the y key for “yank” (that’s a term from Emacs). For that, I rely on file to tell me the mimetype of the image, then I can pass it to xclip along with the filename to copy it to the clipboard. In this case, we only copy the first of the selected files since the clipboard cannot hold several files at once.

case "y"
    set FILE "$FILES[1]"
    set TYPE (file -i "$FILE" | sed -r 's|.*(image/[a-z]+);.*|\1|')
    xclip -sel clip -t "$TYPE" -i "$FILE"

Secure key generator

tr -cd '[:alnum:]' < /dev/urandom | fold -w 64 | head -n 1 | tr -d '\n'

Starwars

This is a one-liner that allows you to watch Star Wars episode 4 in ASCII art in your terminal. Here is the code:

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

Emacs stuff

Dired

This script allows me to open anything in dired from the command line.

emacsclient -c -a emacs -e "(dired \"$*\")"

Ediff

I want Ediff as my merge tool, not just with Git but with other programs tooa, such as pacdiff.

emacsclient -c -a emacs -e "(ediff-files \"$1\" \"$2\")"

Emacsmail

This short script is used in my ~/.local/share/applications/mu4e.desktop file in order to send to Emacs any mailto: requests made in my system.

emacsclient -c -n -a emacs -e "(browse-url-mail \"$*\")"

Restart Emacs

Believe me or not, it happens I restart Emacs. I generally start Emacs manually with emacs --daemon because of an issue rendering lsp-mode useless when started by the user systemd service.

PID_EMACS=$(pidof emacs)
killall emacs
echo "Waiting for Emacs to be killed... (pid: $PID_EMACS)"
if timeout 30 tail --pid=$PID_EMACS -f /dev/null ; then
    emacs --daemon
else
    echo "Failed to kill Emacs after 30s"
fi

Media

mp42webm

This function allows me to convert easily a MP4 video to the webm format. Nothing too fancy here.

ffmpeg -i "$1" -c:v libvpx -crf 10 -b:v 1M -c:a libvorbis "$1".webm

youtube-dl wrappers

ytplay

ytplay is a simple script I’ve written that allows me to play in MPV any YouTube video at the desired resolution. The script relies on dmenu (or rofi in dmenu-mode), youtube-dl and of course mpv itself.

URL=$(rofi -dmenu -i -p "Video URL")
if [ -z "$URL" ]; then
    echo "You need to provide a URL"
    exit 1
fi
RESOLUTION_CHOICE=$(yt-dlp --list-formats "$URL" | \
                        grep -E "webm.*[0-9]+x[0-9]" | \
                        awk '{print $3 " " $1}' | \
                        sort -gu | \
                        rofi -dmenu -i -p "Resolution")
mapfile -t RESOLUTION <<< "$RESOLUTION_CHOICE"
RESOLUTION_CODE=${RESOLUTION[0]}
mpv --ytdl-format="${RESOLUTION_CODE}+bestaudio/best" "$URL"

I’ll even add a .desktop entry for this script:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Version=1.0
Name=ytplay (YouTube in mpv)
Comment=Play YouTube videos in mpv
Exec=/home/phundrak/.local/bin/ytplay
Path=/home/phundrak/.local/bin
Terminal=false
Categories=Media

Misc

Broadway

This simple script launches broadwayd, a utility that renders GTK applications as web apps, and a program displayed to broadway directly.

export display_screen=:5
broadwayd $display_screen &
GDK_BACKEND=broadway BROADWAY_DISPLAY=$display_screen "$@"

But let’s cut the middleman for most of my uses of Broadway.

export display_screen=:5
broadwayd $display_screen &
GDK_BACKEND=broadway BROADWAY_DISPLAY=$display_screen emacs

Plock

plock is a simple script that locks the screen with i3lock while setting as the background image of the locked screen a corrupted screenshot of the screen before it was locked.

TMPBG="/tmp/screen.png"
if [ "$XDG_SESSION_TYPE" = "wayland" ]
then
    SCREENER=grim
    LOCKER="swaylock -feF"
else
    SCREENER=scrot
    LOCKER="i3lock -ef"
fi

$SCREENER "$TMPBG"
corrupter -add 0 "$TMPBG" "$TMPBG"
$LOCKER -ti "$TMPBG"
rm $TMPBG

Rofi utilities

askpass

Askpass is a simple script that invokes rofi as a way to get from a GUI the user’s sudo password. It is inspired by this original tool, rewritten in bash and with rofi support instead of dmenu. As you can see, this is a oneliner if we ignore the initial shebang. This executable is pointed at by the

rofi -dmenu -password -no-fixed-num-lines -p $(printf "$*" | sed 's/://')

awiki

awiki is a simple script used with rofi that relies on the arch-wiki-docs package in order to provide the user a way to quickly find and display any English page from the Arch Wiki in a browser. The advantage of using this over the wiki-search utility from the arch-wiki-lite package is you get instant suggestion in rofi using fuzzy-search. The downside is rofi will only help you find pages by their title, and it will not help you find keywords in the content of said pages.

The first step is to create the list of all the pages that are currently stored on disk. arch-wiki-docs stores them in /usr/share/doc/arch-wiki/html/en. A simple ls piped in three sed will give us a list of page titles. We then pipe that into rofi in dmenu mode in order to choose the page we want to display. By the way, setting the location of the HTML files will come in handy later.

WLOCATION=/usr/share/doc/arch-wiki/html/en/
WPAGE=$(/bin/ls "$WLOCATION" | \
            sed -e 's/_/ /g' -e 's/\.html$//' -e 's|.*/\(.*\)|\1|' | \
            rofi -dmenu -p "Arch Wiki" -i)
WPAGE=$(echo $WPAGE | sed -r 's/\s+/_/g')

Now, all I need to do is to send this list into rofi and tell it to open the result with our favorite browser with xdg-open.

xdg-open "$WLOCATION$WPAGE.html"

dmenu

I wrote this very simple script in order to replace dmenu with rofi’s emulation of dmenu, since I prefer rofi’s appearance. It basically calls rofi’s dmenu emulation with the arguments initially passed to dmenu.

rofi -dmenu "$*"

Emoji picker

The emoji picker is a simple bash script that uses rofi and [~/.config/emoji.txt](file:///home/runner/.config/emoji.txt) to provide a small, local search for emojis. It is relatively easy to build this file from the Unicode’s test file. Once the emoji is selected, it is copied to the clipboard using xclipboard when in a Xorg session or wl-copy from wl-clipboard when in a Wayland session.

SELECTED_EMOJI=$(grep -v "#" ~/.config/emoji.txt | rofi -dmenu -p "Select emoji" -i | awk '{print $1}' | tr -d '\n')
if [ "$XDG_SESSION_TYPE" = "wayland" ]
then printf "%s" "$SELECTED_EMOJI" | wl-copy
else printf "%s" "$SELECTED_EMOJI" | xclip -sel clip
fi

Also, let’s send a notification telling the user the emoji has been copied!

if [ "$XDG_SESSION_TYPE" = "wayland" ]
then EMOJI=$(wl-paste)
else EMOJI=$(xclip -o)
fi

test -z "$EMOJI" && notify-send "No emoji copied" -u low && exit
EMOJI="$EMOJI copied to clipboard"
notify-send -u low "$EMOJI"

It is inspired from this video from Luke Smith.

rofi-ytdl

This is just a simple wrapper around ytdl so I can easily download a video from rofi, which we’ll use first to retrieve the URL of the video we want to download, be it from YouTube or other website supported by youtube-dl.

URL=$(echo "Video to download:" | rofi -dmenu -i -p "Video to download:")

Now, if the variable URL is not empty (i.e. the user specified a link and did not abort the operation), we’ll proceed to the download. Before it begins, we’ll send a notification saying the download is about to begin. When the ytdl process ends, we’ll also send a notification notifying the user on the success or failure of the download.

if [ -n "$URL" ]; then
    notify-send -u normal "YTDL" "Starting downloading\n$URL"
    if [[ $(ytdl "$URL") ]]
    then
        notify-send -u normal "YTDL" "Finished downloading!"
    else
        notify-send -u critical "YTDL" "Failed downloading\n$URL"
    fi
fi

Wallpaper utilities

pape-update

This little tool sets a random wallpaper using xwallpaper.

PAPESDIR=$HOME/Pictures/Wallpapers
PAPE=$(find "$PAPESDIR" -type f | sort -R | tail -1)
set-pape "$PAPE"

Select wallpaper

This script is based on what nsxiv can do as an image viewer as well as xwallpaper.

PAPE=$(nsxiv -orbft ~/Pictures/Wallpapers/*)
set-pape "$PAPE"

Set a wallpaper

This utility is not meant to be called by the user directly, but rather by scripts that may be written by the user. Its role is simple: check if the provided wallpaper exists and if it is an image. If both requirements are met, the path to this image is then stored in $XDG_CACHE_HOME/wallpaper, or if this variable is empty in $HOME/.cache/wallpaper.

CACHEFILE=$([ -n "$XDG_CACHE_HOME" ] && echo "$XDG_CACHE_HOME/wallpaper" || echo "$HOME/.cache/wallpaper")
[[ -f $1 ]] &&                              \
    grep image <(file -b --mime-type "$1") && \
    echo "$1" > "$CACHEFILE"                    \
    && xwallpaper --zoom "$1"

Wayland

Wayland Environment Variables Setup

#export GDK_BACKEND=wayland # May cause problems with some xorg applications
export TDESKTOP_DISABLE_GTK_INTEGRATION=1
export CLUTTER_BACKEND=wayland
export BEMENU_BACKEND=wayland

# Firefox
export MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1

#
# Qt environment
#
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland-egl #error with apps xcb
export QT_WAYLAND_FORCE_DPI=physical
export QT_WAYLAND_DISABLE_WINDOWDECORATION=1

#
# Elementary environment
#
export ELM_DISPLAY=wl
export ECORE_EVAS_ENGINE=wayland_egl
export ELM_ENGINE=wayland_egl
export ELM_ACCEL=opengl
# export ELM_SCALE=1

#
# SDL environment
#
export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland

#
# Java environment
#
export _JAVA_AWT_WM_NONREPARENTING=1

export NO_AT_BRIDGE=1
export WINIT_UNIX_BACKEND=wayland
export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID

Qtile

export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland
export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland
export XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=wlroots
export XDG_CURRENT_TYPE=wlroots
export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=wlroots
. /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/50-systemd-user.sh
. way-env-setup
systemctl --user import-environment DISPLAY WAYLAND_DISPLAY XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
exec qtile start -b wayland

Newm

export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland
export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland
export XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=wlroots
export XDG_CURRENT_TYPE=wlroots
export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=wlroots
. /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/50-systemd-user.sh
. way-env-setup
systemctl --user import-environment DISPLAY WAYLAND_DISPLAY XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
exec start-newm

Sway

export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland
# export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland
# export XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=wlroots
# export XDG_CURRENT_TYPE=wlroots
export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=sway
. /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/50-systemd-user.sh
. way-env-setup
systemctl --user import-environment DISPLAY WAYLAND_DISPLAY XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
exec sway --unsupported-gpu

Below is the script I use to display information in sway’s bar. It is divided by functions that are then called all together. First, getting the date is quite straightforward.

sb_date() {
    echo "$(date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') | "
}

Then we can get what piece of audio is playing. Note however that something will be displayed only if something is playing.

sb_playerctl() {
    PLAYING=""
    if [ "$(playerctl status)" = "Playing" ]; then
        PLAYING_ARTIST="$(playerctl metadata xesam:artist)"
        PLAYING_TITLE="$(playerctl metadata xesam:title)"
        PLAYING=" $PLAYING_ARTIST - $PLAYING_TITLE | "
    fi
    echo "$PLAYING"
}

The battery is relatively straightforward too. I should however find how to get estimates of battery time. I’m sure I can come up with something, but for now I’m just too lazy.

sb_battery() {
    CAPACITY="$(cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/capacity)%"
    STATE="$(cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/status)"
    echo "$CAPACITY ($STATE)"
}

Now comes an indicator for Docker containers which will be displayed only if at least one is running.

sb_docker() {
    DOCKER_RUNNING="$(docker ps -q | wc -l)"
    # echo "Docker: $DOCKER_RUNNING"
    if [ "$DOCKER_RUNNING" = "0" ]
    then echo ""
    else echo "Docker: $DOCKER_RUNNING | "
    fi
}

Finally, let’s display everything.

echo "$(sb_docker)$(sb_playerctl)$(sb_date)$(sb_battery) "

Weather

A quick and useful script I often use is a curl request to v2.wttr.in to get a weather forecast in the terminal. By default, I want the request to be about the city I live in, but it is also possible for the script to accept as its arguments a search inquiry.

if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
    SEARCH=$(printf "%s+" "$@")
    SEARCH=${SEARCH%+}
    curl "http://v2.wttr.in/~$SEARCH"
else
    curl "http://v2.wttr.in/Aubervilliers"
fi

Wrappers

In order to avoid clutter in my $HOME directory, I have some wrappers around some commands that simply add some options by default.

HOME="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/android /usr/bin/adb "$@"

/usr/bin/mbsync -c "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"/isync/mbsyncrc "$@"

/usr/bin/wget --hsts-file="$XDG_DATA_HOME"/wget-hsts "$@"