...making Linux just a little more fun!
Mulyadi Santosa [mulyadi.santosa at gmail.com]
A quick way to show current month's calendar is by executing "cal" command. By default, it will show current month calendar.
Should you need to show calendar of certain month and year, simply type it as parameter. For example:
$ cal 1 1979will show you calendar of January 1979
regards,
Mulyadi.
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 12:51:50AM +0700, Mulyadi Santosa wrote:
> A quick way to show current month's calendar is by executing "cal" > command. By default, it will show current month calendar. > > Should you need to show calendar of certain month and year, simply > type it as parameter. For example: > $ cal 1 1979 > will show you calendar of January 1979
'gcal' does the above plus much more:
Gcal displays hybrid and proleptic Julian and Gregorian calendar sheets, respectively, for one month, three months or a whole year. It also displays eternal holiday lists for many countries around the globe, and features a very powerful creation of fixed date lists that can be used for reminding purposes. Gcal can calculate various astro‐ nomical data and times of the Sun and the Moon for at pleasure any location, precisely enough for most civil purposes. Gcal supports some other calendar systems, for example the Chinese and Japanese calendar, the Hebrew calendar and the civil Islamic calendar, too. If Gcal is started without any options or commands, a calendar of the current month is displayed.
One thing I've always liked about it is that today's date is highlighted.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Thomas Adam [thomas.adam22 at gmail.com]
2008/11/10 Ben Okopnik <ben@linuxgazette.net>:
> One thing I've always liked about it is that today's date is > highlighted.
FWIW, that happens with plain "cal", too.
-- Thomas Adam
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 09:18:43PM +0000, Thomas Adam wrote:
> 2008/11/10 Ben Okopnik <ben@linuxgazette.net>: > > One thing I've always liked about it is that today's date is > > highlighted. > > FWIW, that happens with plain "cal", too.
Interesting. As I recall, the reason that I started using 'gcal' over 'cal' is that, at the time, it was a distinct difference between the two.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Jim Jackson [jj at franjam.org.uk]
On Mon, 10 Nov 2008, Ben Okopnik wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 09:18:43PM +0000, Thomas Adam wrote: >> 2008/11/10 Ben Okopnik <ben@linuxgazette.net>: >>> One thing I've always liked about it is that today's date is >>> highlighted. >> >> FWIW, that happens with plain "cal", too. > > Interesting. As I recall, the reason that I started using 'gcal' over > 'cal' is that, at the time, it was a distinct difference between the > two.
Yeah I remember that too. But now the only difference I see is gcal's
current month is indented by a space, whereas cal is flush upto the left
Style guru's will no doubt argue about the aesthetics.
I have tried to come to grips with the gcalrc configuration for diary/events etc. But I've found the documentation to be difficult and not always matching what actually happens. Of course it may just be me being thick. But if anyone knows of a good tutorial, I'd love to retry.
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 03:52:28PM +0000, Jim Jackson wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Nov 2008, Ben Okopnik wrote: > > > Interesting. As I recall, the reason that I started using 'gcal' over > > 'cal' is that, at the time, it was a distinct difference between the > > two. > > Yeah I remember that too. But now the only difference I see is gcal's > current month is indented by a space, whereas cal is flush upto the left >
gcal|sed 's/^ //'
There. Difference all gone.
> I have tried to come to grips with the gcalrc configuration for > diary/events etc. But I've found the documentation to be difficult and not > always matching what actually happens. Of course it may just be me being > thick. But if anyone knows of a good tutorial, I'd love to retry.
Unfortunately, I have to agree: gcal's documentation demonstrates the pitfalls of the Unix "here-a-doc, there-a-doc, everywhere-a-doc" method (this is, fortunately, a very rare case; most packages are nowhere nearly this confusing.) The man page is misleadingly short, and the doc directory (/usr/share/doc/gcal) is mind-bendingly irrelevant. I.e., unless you already know how the .gcalrc files work, you will not learn it from there - and any hints on where to search for that information have been carefully destroyed and their corpses buried in the deepest forest at darkest midnight.
'info gcal' is - ta-daa! - full of stuff. And I mean FULL. After you wade through a huge list of seemingly useless entries, you'll get to juicy-sounding bits like "Resource file configuration"... only to find out that you can't make any sense of it without all of the foregoing (a mass of documentation read only by those for whom "War and Peace" seemed too laconic and devoid of detail.)
I'm sure that the author had good intentions when writing all of that, but between the hyper-verbose style, the scattered and fractured nature of the docs, and his somewhat non-standard English, it's difficult to say the least. Add in the fact that 'gcal' really is capable of some unbelievably complicated stuff - i.e., requires tons of complex options - and you're instantly swimming with the sharks.
Despite all of that, I still like it for the small subset of features that I use.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]
Quoting Ben Okopnik (ben@linuxgazette.net):
> 'info gcal' is - ta-daa! - full of stuff. And I mean FULL.
Haha. Of course. The letter "g" does not stand for "generally known locations for information", you know. It stands for Gfree Gsoftware Gfoundation's Ggargantuan Gpiles Gof Gdocumentation Gin GGNU Ginfo Gformat. And we love their "info" fixation. We really do.
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 05:35:21PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Ben Okopnik (ben@linuxgazette.net): > > > 'info gcal' is - ta-daa! - full of stuff. And I mean FULL. > > Haha. Of course. The letter "g" does not stand for "generally known > locations for information", you know. It stands for Gfree Gsoftware > Gfoundation's Ggargantuan Gpiles Gof Gdocumentation Gin GGNU Ginfo Gformat.
[*Gag*]
> And we love their "info" fixation. We really do.
I'll admit, it took me a while to remember that I could look there - even though I've been guilty of recommending it as an information source in the past... despite the fact that it's used only by Venusians on left-handed Tuesdays during riots caused by falling coffee prices. In this one case, it was the right place to look - but only by accident.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Jim Jackson [jj at franjam.org.uk]
On Tue, 11 Nov 2008, Ben Okopnik wrote:
>> Yeah I remember that too. But now the only difference I see is gcal's >> current month is indented by a space, whereas cal is flush upto the left >>
style gurus subdued
And I'm really glad of the comments below (sorry for sort of top posting). I really did think it was just me not getting it. Good to know I'm not on my own.
[[[ I took the liberty of taking out the uncommented-on remainder. -- Kat ]]]