# MX Conky Help

## Background

MX Conky is a tool whose goal is to render the use and customization of conky scripts available to a wider and non-technical audience. It consists of a gui program and an associated data file of conkies that have been tested and edited for use in MX Linux.

Conky is an extremely versatile system monitoring utility that can display on your desktop a wide variety of information. Many creative conky scripts exist that have expanded its original scope to include music, email, weather, updates, etc. Its range has been further extended with the use of Lua, a lightweight and powerful programming language.

Many users find conky configurations (“conkies”) difficult to customize. They come from many different sources, they often follow no consistent configuration layout, many older ones no longer work for one reason or another, and the text itself is difficult to understand.

MX Conky was created to provide an easy starting point for users lacking prior experience. The 2025 upgrade completely reworks it into a full-featured conky manager. Some users, especially those with prior versions, may wish to add Conky Manager (conky-manager2) as an auxillary tool.

## Use

NB: do not put a conky config into your /home folder (~/.conkyrc) as traditionally recommended, but into the hidden folder ~/.conky/ instead.

### The main window of MX Conky has the following elements:

1. The filter window allows you to restrict conkies shown to a certain location or condition.
2. Each conky found following the filter setting is displayed in a separate entry.
3. An autologin checkbox allows you to set a conky to appear on the desktop on login. More than one conky can be set.
4. A group of control buttons for the individual conky make changes easier.
   1. Delete. The conky will be permanently removed from its location.
   2. Edit. Opens the conky script in a text editor. If the conky is one of those installed by default into /usr/share/mx-conky-data/themes/ then you will be prompted to copy it into your Home directory before editing.
   3. Customize. Launches a separate window for advanced editing.
   4. Start/Stop. Sets the running state for the current session.
5. A group of system buttons:
   1. Refresh. Search and display all conkies matching the Settings filter.
   2. Start all. Display all conkies enabled to start.
   3. Stop all. Hide all running conkies.
   4. Previews. Create a preview for a selected conky.
   5. Settings. Determine the conky locations to be included.
6. The preview window. If no preview is shown use the system button to create one.

### Customize window

The 6 tabs are self-explanatory, with the exception of Colors. In the image above, you can see the colors that were used in the selected conky. You will find those colors listed in the conky script itself, but it is greatly easier to change them with MX Conky.

To understand how to proceed, let’s use MX Conky to alter the color of a default conky, taking MX-Cowan_less as our example. Here is the original:

Launch MX Conky, navigate to that conky and open it, and click on Run so you can see it while you work. Here is the Color field you will see in the Colors tab of the Customize window:

Now let's change the purple to, say, dark orange. Click the little change box with three dots to the right of the purple "Color2" and use one of three ways to change it:

- Click in the "Color name" box and delete everything in it, including the hash symbol; then type in "dark orange" (without the quotes)
- Use the color wheel to select a dark orange color you like, following the tool tip you see when you hover the cursor over it
- Click on the little eyedropper and use it to select an orange color from anywhere on your screen (the Firefox icon, for example)

The result will be an instant change to the conky something like this:

Notice that it took less than one minute to make the change!

## Tips and Tricks

- If you want to separate elements with different colors that are currently using the same color, find where it is in the text part of the script and insert a new MX color name that is not already being used (e.g., {color5}). Be sure to return to the color before it by adding the preceding color name (e.g., {color4}) at the end of the element.
- If you notice problems with brightness and shadows around a conky when using Compton, try this:
  - Look for the line own_window_type and change the word that comes after it to "desktop"; if the line is not there, add it
  - If present, try setting own_window_argb_visual to "yes"
- If using Alt + Left click to move a conky does not seem to work, check that the script has this line: "own_window_type normal"; if another word appears there instead of "normal," try changing it to see if that helps. Some scripts may be rendered non-functional by such a change, so proceed carefully.
- Some of the conkies look pretty good against their own background instead of being "pseudo-transparent." To try that, use Conky Manager to set the background to "opaque" or manually change the line own_window_transparent yes to own_window_transparent no. You can adjust the size of an opaque window with Alt + Right click.
- The font used in a particular conky may not support your language, and you will see junk instead of the correct word. This is particularly true for languages that are not based on the Latin alphabet.
  - For Greek and Cyrillic, open the script and try changing (Search > Replace) the font to one of the Roboto ones such as Roboto-Light
  - For Chinese and other East Asian languages, try wqy-microhei
- If the time is not correct–or if changing the font did not correct a problem with the time text–change if present the line "override_utf8_locale no" to override_utf8_locale yes
- To change to 24hr time, in most cases you can use Conky Manager > Gear icon > Time. A few conkies are set to a time format that can not be changed (the default Gotham, for example). In such cases, click the pencil icon to open up the script itself, and click Search > Replace to change %l (lower-case L) to %H
  - If trying to locate the conky on one of multiple screens, you can use the conky object xinerama_head. For example, to get it to the top left of screen 1 (use Display to find the correct number):

        alignment top_left
        xinerama_head = 1

- When using a conky with a network function, you will probably need to change the interface name–especially given the change that came with Debian Stretch. You can do that most easily with Conky Manager settings > Network; alternatively, edit the conky script by using the Search > Replace screen, changing what is in the script (eth0, for instance). To find out those names, run this command as regular user in a terminal (F4):

      cd /sys/class/net && ls --ignore=lo

## Technical Details

- The data package that is included with MX Conky (mx-conky-data) is installed into /usr/share/mx-conky-data/themes/.
- Selection of conkies to be included is based primarily on simplicity and aesthetics.
- Every conky included by default with MX-Conky is accompanied by a source file indicating the original creator and a thumbnail image.
- Conkies included use both old and new syntax. Conkies with old syntax can be converted to the new one in the following manner:
  - Install lua5.2
  - Download convert.lua
  - Run command:

        lua ./convert.lua old_conkyrc new_conkyrc

- The included conkies are based on the work of various artistic creators. They have been updated for function (e.g., switching to new network interface names), restructured to work with MX Conky and edited for simplicity.
- To add a new conky so it will work with MX Conky:
  - First use Conky Manager to see if it will show at all on MX Linux. (If not, try changing the transparency to pseudo-transparent.)
  - Open up the script, and collect all the different instances of color name/code inside braces (e.g., {color forestgreen} or {color 228B22})
  - Create a color declaration above the word TEXT somewhere by making a list like this (compare one of the MX conkies if unsure):
    - color0 forestgreen
    - color1 EAEAEA
    - etc.
  - Use Edit > Replace to substitute all the instances of a name or code with its list name (e.g., so all "forestgreen" will be replaced by "color0"
  - Save and exit
  - Now you will be able to change all occurences of a certain color following the MX Conky procedure outlined above.
  - If your new conky works with MX Conky and meets the selection criteria, please submit it on the Forum to be considered for inclusion.

## Resources

- http://conky.sourceforge.net/config_settings.html
- https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/wiki/
- http://conky.sourceforge.net/variables.html
- Time Format in Scripts
- http://conky.sourceforge.net/docs.html
- https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=281865
- https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=39906
- https://conky-artists-group.deviantart.com/gallery/24132854/Featured
- http://www.mediafire.com/file/ibvla9ikr … +Pack_3.7z

Development history: Jerry3904 and Adrian