Overview of CyOSD

Documentation / CyOSD

• Overview of CyOSD
  • What It Does
  • What It Is Not
• Using CyOSD
  • Say One Thing
  • Multiline Text
  • Place It Where Eyes Already Are
  • Progress Without A Dialog
  • Colour And Face
• Command Line
  • Timing And Lifetime
  • Placement
  • Look
  • Progress Meters
  • Multiline Text
• Copyright

Overview of CyOSD

CyOSD is the on-screen display for Blueprint: transient banners and progress meters that appear, say one thing, and leave.

Open this book from Help Books as "CyOSD", or:

cyhelp --book CyOSD --topic overview

The Applications page lists it as: On-screen display.

What It Does

cyosd is the command-line face of libcyosd, the shared banner layer the rest of the desktop links directly. Run it from a shell script, a hook, or a session file when you need to tell the user something without opening a window: a volume tick, a desk switch, a link going down, a rebuild in progress.

A banner is an override-redirect window with no decoration and no focus. It never steals the keyboard, never appears in the task area, and it goes away on its own. There is nothing to dismiss and nothing to click. With --progress the chip grows a meter and the text becomes its label.

Banners follow the running colour scheme. Where no scheme is installed yet (earliest session startup), cyosd falls back to a plain look rather than failing.

What It Is Not

• Not a dialog, notice, or prefs panel (those are CyNotice / CySimpleDialog)
• Not a persistent notification tray or message log
• Not something you leave open; it maps, fades, and exits
• Not the only caller of libcyosd -- desktop apps link the library too

In This Book

• Using CyOSD -- when and how to call it day to day
• Command Line -- placement, timing, progress, demos
• Copyright