ConkyPress a WordPress stats visualization tool for your desktop

This post is about a software I have written called ConkyPress. You can use ConkyPress to visualize the statistics of your WordPress blog on your desktop. ConkyPress is just like a widget sitting on your desktop and it updates itself by default every 10 minutes. You can change the update interval and everything else by using the provided and very simple configuration files. If you decide to use ConkyPress I would be very happy about your feedback and especially about screenshots of your desktop.

1. About ConkyPress
2. Dependencies
3. Installation and configuration
4. Starting and Stopping
5. Download
6. Screenshots
7. Troubleshooting and FAQ
8. Changelog
9. Acknowledgment

1. About ConkyPress

I have written ConkyPress because I was getting tired of looking up my WordPress statistics in the browser or wasting battery life by using the WordPress-App on my phone. ConkyPress is written in python and utilizes Conky to show the stats of your WordPress blog on your desktop. I have split the software into modules. Each module is responsible for a different aspect of the statistics and it is very easy to add more modules later. Currently there are modules for:

• Title: Your blogs title, last update, error messages
• Overview: Visitors today, yesterday, best ever, all time
• Comments: Approved, pending, spam
• Authors: Todays top authors
• My Top Posts: Shows todays stats of your posts
• All Top Posts: Shows todays stats of all posts

The look and most of other properties can be configured with the provided config.xml. The configuration will be described under the Installation and configuration section.

2. Dependencies

ConkyPress depends on the following software:

• Conky compiled with Imlib2 support
• Imlib2
• Python 2.7.x
• BeautifulSoup4
• PycURL

Notice: Without Imlib2 you will have no support for images in ConkyPress/Conky. If you don’t want to install Imlib2, you have to disable the use of images in the config.xml. The configuration will be described under the Installation and configuration section.

3. Installation and configuration

Besides installing the missing dependencies there is no installation process involved. Just download ConkyPress from the download section and extract the archive.

The configuration of ConkyPress can be done in the provided config.xml. You will find all the instructions you need as comments inside the file. The most important part is to fill in your WordPress login information and your blogs URL. In case you don’t have Imlib2 support in Conky (and don’t want to install it), you will have to activate the noimages options in the config.xml. You can use the config.xml to:

• Enable or disable the different sections of ConkyPress
• Tweak ConkyPress e.g. correcting the position of images
• Disable the ConkyPress-Logo
• Disable images at all (important if you don’t have Imlib2)
• Change the styling and all colors of ConkyPress

If you want to change the default update interval of 10min , you will have to edit the file conkyPressRc and change the value behind “update_interval” (update interval in sec). Feel free to make other modifications in that file, however the preset options should be ok for most users.

4. Starting and Stopping

Open a terminal, change into the ConkyPress folder and use the provided Bash-Script to start, stop or restart ConkyPress.

Of course you will have to make the script executable first. You can do it like this:

$ chmod +x conkyPress.sh

Now you can start ConkyPress by executing conkyPress.sh and providing start as an parameter. Example:

$ sh ./conkyPress.sh start

Or stop ConkyPress by executing conkyPress.sh and providing stop as an parameter. Example:

$ sh ./conkyPress.sh stop

Or restart ConkyPress by executing conkyPress.sh and providing restart as an parameter. Example:

$ sh ./conkyPress.sh restart

5. Download

Stable version (recommended):

Direct download: ConkyPress(v1.0.9).zip (zip / gitHub)
Direct download: ConkyPress(v1.0.9).tar.gz (tar.gz / gitHub)

Source:

clone the newest source from GitHub:

$ git clone https://github.com/linuxm0nk3ys/conkyPress.git

6. Screenshots

Current Version:

Old Versions:
  

7. Troubleshooting and FAQ

ConkyPress is still very new, so in case of any trouble feel free to leave a comment. I will try to fix bugs a soon as possible and of course reply to your questions.

8. Changelog

v1.0.9:

• Update to match the HTML-code changes of the WordPress stat pages. This fixes the “my top posts” section
• Fixed typos in comments and README
• ConkyPress moved from BETA to STABLE

v1.0.8:

• Added feature, by using the config.xml it is now possible to filter words in post titels
• Improvement, added usage Info for restarting to conkyPress.sh

v1.0.7:

• Improvement, replaced start/stop script by an other script. It uses parameters to start, stop or restart conkyPress
• Fix in comments section, number of pending posts were added to number of approved posts

v1.0.6:

• Added number of yesterdays visitors to the overview section
• Fixed a critical typo in an elemet of the config.xml
• Improvement, inversed order of changelog, newest version is now at top

v1.0.5:

• Fixed parsing of the comments stats (WordPress changed some stuff)
• Improvement, showing an “other posts” entry in the “my top posts” section if there are to many posts to display

v1.0.4:

• Fixed character encoding in the all-top-posts section
• Added different colors for pending and spam comments
• Added entrys in config.xml for comment section colors
• Improved notation of colors in the config.xml

v1.0.3:

• Improved stop-script, it now kills all running ConkyPress instances
• Improvement, less memory consumption
• Improvement, now using real transperancy
• Fix in the conkyPressRc for users who use slim and the last version of gnome3
• Made the background semitransparent for better usability on bright desktop backgrounds
• Added comment for Xfce users in the conkyPressRc
• Added comments in the conkyPressRc, for users who want to customize the look an transparency
• Removed unnecessary options from the conkyPressRc

v1.0.2:

• Fixed alignment of numbers in authors section
• Fixed exception in “all-top-posts” section if the user has no posts in it
• Added option in the config.xml to set the space between the sections
• Removed the “-q” option in the startscript, so users can see any error messages

v1.0.1:

• Fixed login session problem in login.py, leading to errors in comment section
• Fixed some typos in the comments

9. Acknowledgment

Acknowledgment goes to the wonderful Conky-Project at http://conky.sourceforge.net/ and a special thanks goes to h0nk3ym0nk3y and funkym0nk3y for beta-testing ConkyPress and their great feedback.

Related articles

• Conky (wiki.archlinux.org)