====== HOWTO setup multiple Conky sessions ======
Conky is a free, light-weight system monitor for X, that displays any information on your desktop.

Conky has more than 250 built in objects, including support for:

  * A plethora of OS stats
  * Built in IMAP and POP3 support
  * Built in support for many popular music players (MPD, XMMS2, BMPx, Audacious)
\\ 
... and much much more.
\\ 

Conky can display this info either as text, or using simple progress bars and graph widgets, with different fonts and colours.

===== About this HOWTO =====
This howto is about how to have several conky sessions running, at the same time, on your desktop at startup.
\\ 

In **#! Crunchbang** you should allready have conky up and running, so no install is needed.
\\ 

It's assumed that you allready know how to edit your ~/.conkyrc and how to use the different variables and settings.
\\ 

When you're done it could look like this:

{{http://www.egenweb.dk/images/multipleconky.jpg?300x360}}

===== Planning =====
The first thing you have to do is to have some thoughts about the following:
  - How many conky's do you want
  - What should they look like
  - Where on the desktop, do you want them

1). This is defined in your startup script. \\ 
2). This is defined in the .conkyrc for the specific widget.\\ 
3). This is also defined in the .conkyrc for the specific widget (see below).\\ 
\\ 
In this example we want to have 4 conky widgets:
  * clock
  * system
  * net
  * processes

===== Prepare your files/folders =====
Create the directory where these .conkyrc should be placed
<code>mkdir .conky
touch .conkyrc_clock
touch .conkyrc_sys
touch .conkyrc_net
touch .conkyrc_proc</code>
\\ 
Now edit the files to suit your needs, you can find more information on the conky [[http://conky.sourceforge.net/documentation.html|homepage]]

===== How to make the correct placement =====
To place the conky widgets can be a bit tricky, but this tip should help.
\\ 
In your .conkyrc_XXX you should have these settings:
<code>maximum_width 130
gap_x 10
gap_y 30
</code>

**maximum_width** is the the width of the widget\\ 
**gap_x** is the distance from the right edge of your screen\\ 
**gap_y** is the distance from the top edge of your screen\\ 
\\ 
The height of the widget is calculated automatically based on the content of your .conkyrc_XXX
\\ 

The command **xwininfo** could be usefull, but the geometry string from these outputs and the gap_ settings does not always match.

===== Your startup script =====
Now when everything is in place you would like to have it all started when you log in, this is the script that makes it all happen.

Open your preferred editor
<code>$EDITOR conky_start</code>

Put this in the file
<code>#!/bin/bash
conky -c ~/.conky/.conkyrc_clock &
conky -c ~/.conky/.conkyrc_sys &
conky -c ~/.conky/.conkyrc_net &
conky -c ~/.conky/.conkyrc_proc
</code>
Yes, the last line must **not** have a trailing &


Make the file executable
<code>chmod +x conky_start</code>

And put the file in your $PATH

The only thing left to do is to have these lines in the bottom of your ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh

<code># Launch Conky
# conky &
(sleep 2s && conky_start) &</code>

===== Customizing Conky =====
These links should help you make some customized conky widgets
  *[[http://conky.sourceforge.net/documentation.html|Conky documentation]]
  *[[http://conky.sourceforge.net/config_settings.html|Conky config file settings]]
  *[[http://conky.sourceforge.net/variables.html|Conky variables]]