Introduction to a modular approach to using Conky.

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If you've been looking at screenshots of *nix powered PC's lately, chances are you've seen information about the computer, network, and hardrives displayed neatly in the corner of the screen. More than likely, what you are seeing is the often-overlooked "conky." More information can be found on this program here:

As informative and as useful as this program is, I always found it's configuration syntax to be less than user friendly at best, and downright dismal at worst. Secondly, as far as flexibility goes, it could use some improvement. It is because of this I started working on a "Modular" approach to using conky.

The idea here is to use actual shell scripts to display the information you want, and simply call the shell scripts from inside conky's configuration. In my opinion, this method provides several advantages:

1. Flexibility. Anything that can be done with the shell can be shown through conky. The only limit here is how much time you're willing to spend thinking up scripts to write.
2. You get more pertinent information being displayed. Given conky's limited list of variables, I always found myself displaying everything available, even things I didn't need, just for the sake of having something up on my screen. By using shell scripts, I can really choose what I want, and not have to pick from a small list.
3. Organization is drastically improved. By simply commenting out three lines in your .conkyrc file, you will remove an entire section from your conky display. This is opposed to commenting or deleting countless lines of jumbled code from a raw .conkyrc file.
4. Portability. I'm hoping to eventually have enough "Modules" or scripts to put on some sort of site where they can be downloaded as they are needed by whoever needs them.

Anyway, I've been rambling enough. In posts to come I'll be putting up some of the scripts I already have completed / near completed (Some are "done," but sloppy.)
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