ARTTIME(1) Arttime Manual ARTTIME(1) NAME arttime - scriptable text art viewer with timer, clock and a free line SYNOPSIS arttime [OPTION]... DESCRIPTION arttime brings curated text art to otherwise artless terminals of starving developers, and others who can use a terminal. While doing so, it blends the display of text art with functionality of a timer, time-manager and a clock. With arttime you can set, clear, pause, or restart timer with a cou- ple of keystrokes. It also provides a versatile free line of text under art as a space to jot down thought of the day or a functional message like "de- bug the failing build tonight". Arttime's scriptable interface makes it possible to display dynamic feed of information. Using a simple external feeder, one can show live system metrics, clickable news feeds, stocks, weather data, and etc. The design decision to unify art and functionality will become apparent in next section. Animation: Some great ascii artists of Web 1.0 era have produced pairs of text art that creates an illusion of motion when displayed in sequence. In it's normal mode, arttime can be set to display a flip-flop animation that toggles between a pair of arts every second. Arttime ships with multiple such animation pairs, one example pair is shown in section CONTRIBUTING. With scripts, one can easily create long text art animations and story- boards. The installation of arttime comes with a storyboard titled "story.batscovid_8b". To learn basics of arttime in a minute, run the following command. Next section describes arttime's user interface with a diagram (Fig-1) that would be handy to look at before or after the demo. $ arttime -k learn.welcome_8b Section ORCHESTRATING, that follows the next section, describes what hap- pens under the hood when you run the above command. Knowing that would help you orchestrate arttime's user interface like a pro, or even script it as a programmer to create custom animations, information feeds, and etc. Follow- ing that, there are sections common to manpages. A section CONTRIBUTING would be of interest to both artists and programmers alike. Footnotes of a section are placed at the end of that section, so you won't have to scroll much. This document is additionally supplemented with online resources men- tioned in section RESOURCES. USER INTERFACE The user interface (UI) of arttime is simple. Fig-1 shows it's annotated main page without any timers set. Salient to the UI is text art that is kept centered on the screen. Message under art displays a caption, quote, thought of the day, or dynamic information. Two most interesting times, and their delta is shown on a dedicated line of times. Everything is config- urable, even while arttime is running. All interactions with the applica- tion are performed via keyboard. Meaning of keys can be accessed anytime by pressing 'h' from the main page. .------------------------------------------------------------------, | | | ARTTIME USER .--------------------- ART | | INTERFACE | | | | | | _ | _ | | / `._ | _.' \ | | ( @ : `. .' : @ ) | | \ `. `. ._ _. .' .' / | | \;' `. `. \ / .' .' `;/ | | \`. `. \ \_/ / .' .'/ | | ) :-._`. \ (:) / .'_.-: ( | | (`.....,`.\/:\/.',.....') | | >------._|:::|_.------< | | MESSAGE ---, / .'._>_.-|:::|-._<_.'. \ | | | |o _.-'_.-^|:|^-._`-._ o| | | | |`' ;_.-'|:|`-._; `'| | | | jgs ".o_.-' ;."|:|".; `-._o." | | | ".__." \:/ ".__." | | | ^ | | | | "I live on a tree and drink quality tea" - Butterfly | | Dec 30, 01:19PM | time elapsed 00h 01m 21s | Dec 30, 01:21PM | | ------- ------- ------- ------- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | START TIME DELTA KIND DELTA CURRENT TIME | | | `------------------------------------------------------------------' Fig-1 main screen of arttime's user interface Times and time deltas shown on the main screen change depending on context. Following table shows various contexts and time information shown in each. Earlier time is displayed to the left of time delta, and later time to it's right. This makes it easier to associate the two times with respect to dif- ference between them.[1] +--------------+--------------+------------------+--------------+ | goal context | left time | delta kind | right time | +--------------+--------------+------------------+--------------+ | cleared | reset time | time since reset | current time | +--------------+--------------+------------------+--------------+ | pending | current time | time to goal | goal time | +--------------+--------------+------------------+--------------+ | paused | pause time | time since pause | current time | +--------------+--------------+------------------+--------------+ | passed | current time | time since goal | goal time | +--------------+--------------+------------------+--------------+ Visual cues like color, underline, and reverse video are used to distin- guish between times. For instance, current time is always shown with an un- derline (not shown in Fig-1). A progress bar appears under the line of times when timers are set. When there is more than one timer, a goal and/or sprint number is also displayed. Pressing 'i' or 'I' lists all timers, and time remaining to reach each one of them. For developers questioning how arttime could fit in the limited real estate on their computer screen, Fig-2 shows a possible 4-pane layout. First split the screen vertically in two halves. The left pane 1 is dedicated for your text editor; figure shows start screen of vim. Then split the right pane horizontally in two. Top-right pane 2 is where arttime goes; figure shows arttime's main screen with house art. Finally, pane 3 at bottom-right is for interactive shell. Wait! these are just 3 panes, didn't I just call it a 4-pane layout? That's because arttime provides functionality of at least two applications (timer, art viewer) in space of one pane. Using two dif- ferent applications would either eat into the area for text editor (pane 1) or interactive shell (pane 2). Both of those tradeoffs are unacceptable while developing. That should explain why arttime merges functionality of a timer with that of an art viewer: to fit the functionality of two applica- tions in screen space for one. Feeding and displaying dynamic information via arttime makes it a 3-in-1 application, utilizing screen space even more judiciously. Next section discusses how arttime can be used to show dynamic information feeds. .---------------------------------,---------------------------------, |~ 1 | `'::. 2 | |~ | _________H ,%%&%, | |~ | /\ _ \%&&%%&% | |~ | / \___/^\___\%&%%&& | |~ | | | [] [] |%\Y&%' | |~ | | | .-. | || | |~ VIM - Vi IMproved | jgs ~~@._|@@_|||_@@|~||~~ | |~ version 9.0.2 | `""") )"""` | |~ Vim is open source and free | | |~ | "Home is where your heart is" | |~ Help poor children! | 9AM | elapsed 5h | 2PM | |~ info at :help iccf<Enter> |---------------------------------| |~ | 3 | |~ quit :q<Enter> | $ pwd | |~ help :help<Enter> | /home/self/github/arttime | |~ version :help version9<Enter> | | |~ | $ ls | |~ | LICENSE_ART LICENSE_ADD /bin | |~ | LICENSE_CODE README.md | |~ | install.sh /share | |~ | | |~ | $ _ | | 0,0-1 All| | `---------------------------------'---------------------------------' Fig-2 possible developer screen layout with arttime [1] The only exception to this rule is for the "goal passed" context, where an earlier time (passed goal time) is displayed to the right and current time is displayed to the left of delta. They are still very distinguishable as current time is underlined as always, and passed goal time is high- lighted in reverse video. ORCHESTRATING This section has something for pro users, programmers as well as interface (UI) designers, while still revolving around a central concept of orches- trating arttime with pre-recorded keystrokes. Language of arttime's key- strokes is all you need to operate it, write configuration files, run macros, or script it from a remote process. Other applications divide these features into four disparate interfaces, each with it's own language: con- figuration files, command options, macros, remote control API. In author's opinion, prevalent style of disparate API stems either from the necessities of an era when inter process communication (IPC) interfaces weren't stable or misapplication of a norm set for non-interactive applications upon in- teractive ones. Whatever be the reason, utilizing IPC can save both devel- opment effort and greatly ease user experience for a range of interactive applications. .-----------------------------------------------------------------, | | | KEYS FOR EVERYTHING | | (KFE) INTERFACE .------------------------------------, | | | `'::. | | | | _________H ,%%&%, | | | | /\ _ \%&&%%&% | | | | / \___/^\___\%&%%&& | | | / file | | | [] [] |%\Y&%' | | | | --------, | | | .-. | || | | | | fifo | | jgs ~~@._|@@_|||_@@|~||~~ | | | SCRIPT | --------| | `""") )"""` | | | MODE | pipe | | | | | | --------| | ASML +3% .. AAPL -1% .. TSLA +1% | | | | stdin |---| 9AM | elapsed 5h | 2PM | | | \ --------| | | | | | | SCRIPT| | | | `------------------------------------' | | keyboard| | | ________|_______ .----------------------| | /:::::::::':::'::\ | Features: | | /::======::: .:.:::\ | - configuration | | jgs `""""""""""""""""""` | - macros | | | - animation | | | - information feeds | `-----------------------------------------------------------------' Fig-3 multiple sources for keystrokes and resulting features Shows live stock market feed from a remote program Fig-3 shows that in addition to computer's keyboard, keystrokes can be fed into arttime from a file, fifo, pipe, or standard input.[2] Arttime under- stands a language of it's keystrokes called artlang. A file or feed written in artlang is referred as keypoem in arttime's user interface. Some keypo- ems come with installation, the file learn.welcome_8b mentioned in first section is one among them. The listing below shows how arttime can be con- nected to read keystrokes from different sources at launchtime. Such exam- ples are shown with animated GIFs on webpages mentioned in section RE- SOURCES. $ (printf 'mhello world\njjjjjjjjy' | arttime) pipe keystrokes into arttime $ arttime -k /path/to/config4 read keystrokes from a file named config4 $ arttime -k /path/to/weatherfeeder-fifo listen at the read-end of a fifo for weather data Acting as macros, keypoems save time and effort needed to change arttime's state. Instead of typing long sequences of keys, one can load them from files. It is simple to make arttime read keys from a file or fifo at run- time, just press 'k' and let the interface guide you. When keystrokes are being fed from a source other than keyboard, arttime runs in SCRIPT mode. Most keys pressed by the user on the keyboard are ignored while arttime is in that mode. To immediately end SCRIPT mode and transfer control back to keyboard, one can signal interrupt. That is achieved by pressing Ctrl-c on most terminals. You can also pause and unpause the feed of keystrokes by pressing 'p'. The inbuilt ability to feed keystrokes from a fifo allows one to temporar- ily connect arttime to a remote program for more innovative use. For in- stance, one can write feeders to display clickable news feeds, tweets, stock market feed, weather data, system metrics, and etc. in arttime. As a boon to developers, such feeder programs can be written in any programming language of choice. The interface is also secure, as most states of feeder and arttime are hermetically sealed from each other. For instance, if feeder crashes, arttime still continues functioning well. The interface also gives a clean license boundary as two codebases don't overlap. Given the enormous matrix of feeder applications and the languages they can be coded in, it makes sense to keep them out of arttime project. In a way, one can think of arttime as a projector with a HDMI port. Devices you can con- nect and contents you can project are too varied to be part of the projec- tor box. More information on writing and contributing feeders is mentioned in section CONTRIBUTING. [2] While this might not sound new to Unix users, none of the interactive applications tried by the author at the time of writing give first-class and native support for feeding keys from different sources while also doing a clean handoff between them. Application writers have traditionally relied on non-native approaches to let users connect their application to a source of choice. Though all such attempts are marred by corner-cases that make user interface limiting and user experience dissatisfying. If we are to call this design pattern of arttime as Keys for everything (KFE), it wouldn't be surprising to learn that arttime might be the first application to implement it reasonably. OPTIONS Content settings There are options to control content displayed on main screen at launch time. This includes art and static text placed under it. arttime looks for art files in a directory (artdir) relative to its own location: artdir=<directory_of_arttime>/../share/arttime/textart/ -a <name> name of a-art file from artdir (default: butterfly) -b <name> name of b-art file from artdir (none by default) -t <str> text placed under art (default: line-1 from a-art file) --random select and display a random art from arttime's collection. When passed, user should not pass option -a or -b. Timer settings -g <time[;time;...;[loop[N]]]> semicolon separated list of goal times you want to get notified at. Each time can be relative to current time (like a timer) or absolute (like an alarm). A loop mentioned as the last time in list makes the application loop over the list of times forever. Or a loopN at the end makes arttime loop over the list N times. Each time in the list can be of a simple or complex format: 1. "2m 30s" (2 minutes and 30 seconds from now) 2. "May 3 1:15PM IST" (IST stands for Indian Standard Time), 3. "next monday 1PM" (1PM local time of coming Monday) 4. "next friday +10 hours" (10AM local time on coming Friday) All times should be entered without quotes. Styles 2-4 are currently supported only if GNU date(1) (or gdate(1)) is installed on the system. macOS/BSD's default date command does not parse complex time specifica- tions like in 2-4. Please search the web for instructions to install GNU date on your system if you have not already done so. Arttime can tell whether you already have GNU date installed or not, just press 'g', type 'help', and press Enter. --hours <12|24> show times in 12 or 24 hour format. The setting, like many others, can be changed from within arttime with a keystroke. (default: 12) Key feed settings As discussed in section ORCHESTRATING, arttime can be fed keys from various sources. A source is read till either it's end is reached or user signals interrupt (Ctrl-c on most systems), whichever comes first. Then control gets cleanly transferred to computer's keyboard. arttime can be fed key- strokes from a file, standard input, pipe, or a fifo. -k, --keypoem <name|file|fifo> feed keystrokes from a keypoem file/fifo. The option can either be passed a name of a file/fifo under keypoemdir: keypoemdir=<directory_of_arttime>/../share/arttime/keypoems/ or full path to a keypoem file/fifo. Many keypoems are already included with arttime's installation. Prefix in their name is suggestive of their function. Here's a representative list of examples: learn.wel- come_8b, timer.pomodoro4learn_8b, anim.military, story.batscovid_8b. If shell completion is enabled, hitting Tab should show names of installed keypoems. At the time of writing this documentation, completions are available only for zsh. Style settings --ac <num> color of art,[3] value between 0-15 (default 1 (red)) --tc <num> color of text under art,[3] value between 0-15 (default 2 (green)) --theme <light|dark> when given, it overrides above color options (default dark) --style <num> style for text placed under art and progress bar. For instance, value of 0 uses regular underline and value of 1 uses curly underline. Style 1 uses more Unicode glyphs, and 0 is more ASCII friendly. Not all ter- minal emulators support curly underlines. Possible values: [0,1] (de- fault 0) --pa <str> char/string to denote pending part of progress bar. If a string, its length should be same as string passed to --pb. (default '-') --pb <str> char/string to denote completed part of progress bar. If a string, its length should be same as string passed to --pa. (default '>') --pl <num> progress bar length (default 10) [3] art and text can have colors embedded in them. Embedded colors override those specified with options or by pressing 'c' at runtime. Miscellaneous settings --nolearn arttime shows meaning of keys when it is launched. When this option is passed, it goes on to directly display text art instead (a butterfly by default). At runtime, pressing 'h' toggles between showing art and the meaning of keys. --version Print version number of arttime, and exit -m, --man Open arttime's manual -h, --help Print help string, and exit ENVIRONMENT TZ Time zone identifier. Without this environment variable set, arttime will show times in system's default timezone. Changing timezone from within arttime is easy: press 'z' followed by Tab and then let the ap- plication guide you to the desired timezone. If you want to launch art- time with different timezone than system's default, you can do so by setting environment variable TZ to an appropriate time zone identifier. For instance, the following invocation will launch arttime in India's timezone: $ TZ=Asia/Kolkata arttime Do not set TZ to abbreviated names like IST. Unlike our confident usage of abbreviated timezone names, they are not unique across the globe. For instance, IST can refer to Indian standard time or Irish standard time. Also, every system can have slightly different timezone identi- fiers that it understands. They are identified by names of files under zoneinfodir: /usr/share/zoneinfo/. In above example, we chose the iden- tifier Asia/Kolkata because file Kolkata resides under directory Asia which in turn is under zoneinfodir. EXIT STATUS 0 Success. 1 Failure (syntax or usage error; unexpected error). EXAMPLES $ arttime launches arttime, shows meaning of keys by default. Then pressing 'h' toggles between that help page and arttime's default art (which is a butterfly) $ arttime --nolearn --random displays a random art from arttime collection. Passing --nolearn makes sure to not show keybindings upon launch $ arttime --nolearn -t "Hello World - Butterfly" prints default (butterfly) art with "Hello World - Butterfly" under text art $ arttime --nolearn -a winnepooh -b winnepooh2 set a-art and b-art to get a flip-flopping animation effect $ arttime --nolearn -t "Hello World - Butterfly" --ac 2 --style 1 prints "Hello World ^a Butterfly", sets art-color to 2 (green), and sets style to use more Unicode characters $ (printf "cccg10s\nmHello World\nh" | arttime) starts arttime in SCRIPT mode. Just like keypoem files, keystrokes are read from pipe till the pipe ends or user signals interrupt (mostly Ctrl-c). Then control gets transferred to the keyboard. With the keystrokes shown here: "ccc" changes color of art thrice to settle on blue; "g10s\n" sets a 10 second timer; "mHello World\n" changes message under art to "Hello World"; "h" toggles help page to show text art. $ arttime -k learn.welcome_8b starts arttime in SCRIPT mode. Keystrokes are read from keypoem file learn.welcome_8b in keypoemdir. Suffix '8b' tells arttime to read the file at 8 bytes/sec. $ arttime -k timer.pomodoro4etc starts arttime in SCRIPT mode, reads keystrokes from file timer.pomodoro4etc under keypoemdir. Essentially, sets a pomodoro time management program, changes art to a colored tomato, and sets a message under the art. Press 'i' when screen settles to see your upcoming timers. CONTRIBUTING Art Arttime intends to be a repository for curating text art. Such art has its most natural home on a terminal and not on the wall of a museum. If you are a text artist interested in adding your work to arttime's collection, or know someone who would be interested, please feel free to reach out. Art- time mainly accepts individual pieces of text art or pairs of related text art for flip-flop animation like in Fig-4. .---------------------------------------------------------------, | | | ANIMA- TION _ _ _ _ jgs | | PAIR /\\.--/\\ //\--.//\ | | \_ _ \//\ | /\\/ _ _/ | | __/o o` | | | `o o\__ | | (/ | | | \) | | \__, / | \ ,__/ | | __\-' / | \ '-/__ | | .-'``\ /`"-=.-="`) | (`"=-.=-"`\ /``'-. | | /` _.-.' \ | / '.-._ `\ | | \_." ,`-._ / /_\ | /_\ \ _.-`, "._/ | | / /-.._/ | | | \_..-\ \ | | | / / | | | \ \ | | | ,| '.__.' | | | '.__.' |, | | _ / \ .-"". / | \ .""-. / \ _ | | / \/ /`-._| |` | `| |_.-`\ \/ \ | | \ \ / \ | | | / \ / / | | \ / \ | | | / \ / | | '-' `. | | | .' '-' | | .-"` \ | / `"-. | | FLIP \__,.-'` `'-.,__/ FLOP | | | `---------------------------------------------------------------' Fig-4 art pair suitable for flip-flop animation Package Creating and maintaining a package for arttime should be simple, and also a good learning exercise for those new to package management. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Feeder As explained in section ORCHESTRATING, it is quite straightforward to write a custom feeder to display dynamic information in arttime. Moreover, such a feeder can be written in any programming language of choice. If you have created a feeder that displays dynamic information of common interest (like news feeds, system metrics, stocks, weather, etc) please get in touch. Art- time project intends to maintain a separate webpage with links to useful feeder programs. Here's a high-level specification for writing feeders: 1. Create a fifo when feeder is launched 2. Wait for arttime to start reading from it 3. Feed keys into fifo as you would have typed them [4] 4. Don't crash if arttime hangs-up, goto to 2 instead 5. If needed, send the sequence 'ky' to signal end of feed [4] 6. Delete the fifo before feeder exits for whatever reason [4] Use capitalized versions like 'A' (set a-art), 'B' (set b-art), 'G' (set goal), 'M' (set message), 'Z' (set timezone) for prompt-free silent updates. These capitalized versions of keys don't work in normal mode when arttime is connected to computer's keyboard. Meaning of some keys is slightly different in SCRIPT mode compared to normal mode. For instance, while in SCRIPT mode and on main screen, a sequence 'ky' from the feed sig- nals that the feed is over. In contrast, pressing 'k' in normal mode from main screen would open a utility to select a keypoem. HISTORY .-----------jgs, arttime is authored and maintained by Aman Mehra | .-""""-. | and has received contributions from others in | ////||\\\\ | open-source community. The project was started in | |/ _ \| | 2022 with the aim to revive ASCII art on modern | ( e (@) ) | terminal emulators while providing functionality | | C | | of a nifty timer and information feed projector. | \ == / | It should work on all POSIX systems with minimal | `|--|` | additional shell utilities. Currently tested to `--------------' work on Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and Windows WSL2. You can reach out at github.com/poetaman/arttime or githubaman@gmail.com depending on context. RESOURCES Main webpage: https://github.com/poetaman/arttime Supplementary wiki: https://github.com/poetaman/arttime/wiki Issue tracker: https://github.com/poetaman/arttime/issues Discussion: https://github.com/poetaman/arttime/discussions LICENSE Copyright (C) 2022-present Aman Mehra. All text art is a Copyright (C) of individual artists. Usage of arttime and it's derivatives is bound by terms of CFLA. For usual development process, arttime is available under GPL3. For more detailed information, please refer the documents titled LI- CENSE_ART, LICENSE_CODE, and LICENSE_ADDENDUM_CFLA at https://github.com/poetaman/arttime. Arttime 2.4.0 2025-07-27 ARTTIME(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | USER INTERFACE | ORCHESTRATING | OPTIONS | ENVIRONMENT | EXIT STATUS | EXAMPLES | CONTRIBUTING | HISTORY | RESOURCES | LICENSE
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