Some Terminal + Geektool help?

[Browzilla]

I'm trying to get geektool to display a text file, except through the terminal since the text option kind of sucks, and now I can specify a refresh rate.

Currently I have in the command box:
cat /Documents/file.txt

Doesn't work. And I'm new to the terminal, so I'm really not to sure what I'm doing. Any help would be greatly appreciated; there's gotta be someone around here who knows the problem.

 

[angelwatt]

Try, cat ~/Documents/file.txt instead The ~ means your home directory. What you have stated looks at the systems root directory for a folder named Documents.

 

[Browzilla]

Didn't seem to help. In all my attempts, it's shown nothing at all, except in the text display mode. Which doesn't update when you remove a line of text, which is useless because this is for a todo list.

Can't see why this isn't working....

 

[cleanup]

I know I'm resurrecting an old thread, but this is pretty much what I'm trying to do.

I can get GeekTool to initially display To Do.txt, but it won't update when I make a change to the file. Is there a shell command I can run that displays the text file? Because I can set a refresh rate for that, at least.

Thanks!

[Edit]: Haha, never mind. Got it working. The command is cat ~/file.txt, but the filename and path cannot have any spaces whatsoever. Now with the refresh rate, the list will update within 5 seconds of me changing the file.

So below I have shown my Geektool setup. I have the clock to refresh every 60 seconds and the Todo list to refresh every 5... do running these Terminal commands have much of an impact on my system? So far, I haven't noticed.

Sorry to bring up an old thread. Just thought it might be interesting to fiddle with.

 

[Cromulent]

Haha, never mind. Got it working. The command is cat ~/file.txt, but the filename and path cannot have any spaces whatsoever.

Actually it can. You just need to type the path like so:

/Users/blah/my\ path\ with\ spaces/stuff/file\ name.txt

 

[cleanup]

Actually it can. You just need to type the path like so:

/Users/blah/my\ path\ with\ spaces/stuff/file\ name.txt

Ha, yeah, I realized that afterwards, and I'm able to get that to work with text files I want to display using the "cat" command, but for some reason, I can't seem to get an image whose path has spaces to display?

file:///Users/Blah/Blah\ Blah \Blah/Image.jpg doesn't work, but file:///Users/Blah/BlahBlahBlah/Image.jpg does (if I remove the spaces from the folder's name).

Any tips?

 

[Watabou]

Is Geektool even available now? I'm trying to find it but I can't download it through MacUpdate or the original website because it times out.

EDIT: disregard this. It works now. I don't know what was happening yesterday.

 

[Cromulent]

Ha, yeah, I realized that afterwards, and I'm able to get that to work with text files I want to display using the "cat" command, but for some reason, I can't seem to get an image whose path has spaces to display?

file:///Users/Blah/Blah\ Blah \Blah/Image.jpg doesn't work, but file:///Users/Blah/BlahBlahBlah/Image.jpg does (if I remove the spaces from the folder's name).

Any tips?

Ah. Use %20 in place of any spaces in that case.

 

[Blindfutur3]

Try, cat ~/Documents/file.txt instead The ~ means your home directory. What you have stated looks at the systems root directory for a folder named Documents.

Thank you very much angelwatt!

Since using GeekTool I have been looking for a way to refresh the .txt todo file I display.

Now if only the Delete Line command in Quicksilver were more stable things would be perfect. Atlest I can amend my todo list from Quicksilver now and have it update