TBT: Doom mooD

doom mood

I posted about this a long time ago, but I was cleaning my hard drive and found this screenshot and I need to brag about how awesome Doom mooD was:

  1. The face animated
  2. The face got bloodier the higher the CPU usage got
  3. The expression changed depending on how quickly CPU usage changed
  4. Doomguy’s face turns to look at your mouse pointer when it enters the widget
  5. A testament to the original id design, this little bar packs a ton of information
  6. iddqd
Demo of the face animation of Doom mooD

2006 me was cleverer than I remember. I was mindful of overhead, made my own crude bitmap font, and was doing some pretty clever JavaScript for 2006.

I even found my original README:

This widget was born from boredom. I saw a Doom screenshot and thought
to myself that the status bar of Doom would make an entertaining
system monitor, and so I made it in Konfabulator.

I never though it would be all that useful, but I must say, I surprise
even myself. Turns out I use this widget ALL the time. And watching
the face is quite entertaining. So entertaining in face I made a
special face-only mode for the widget. The face mode is excellent
because you can put the face anywhere and he blends in. And a quick
glance tells you how your system is doing. (HINT: blood = bad).

I must warn you, one side effect of using this widget is that I
started to stress my system on purpose, just to get the guy to make
cooler, bloodier, faces.

== Usage Tips ==
To the right of the memory indicator, there are three indicators.
The first one shows if you have a CD or DVD inserted. Clicking will
open it.
The second one will show you if your volume is muted.
The third one will give info about the Trash/Recycle Bin. Clicking
will open it.

== Weapon Slots ==
These are the indicators labelled '2' through '7' directly left of
the face. In Doom mooD, they are used as quick launchers.

To add an entry, simply drag and drop what you want to launch onto
a number. The widget will remember this entry between sessions.

To clear an entry, right click and select 'Clear'

To launch an entry, right click and select 'Launch'
or while the widget is focused, type the number corresponding to entry.

The entry can be anything. A link, a program, a document, a picture, etc.

== Side Meters ==
On the far right, there are four meters. To set these, go into
preferences and check the \"Side Meters\" tab. The DISK meter will not
show anything until you set a drive for it to monitor. To do this,
right click on the DISK text and select the drive from the context
menu. If you do not see drives in the context menu reposition the
mouse and try again.

Note: The Virtual Memory meter isn't very accurate.

== How To Read the Face ==
Ok, so you know the more beat up and bloody he gets, the worse off
your system is. The blood corresponds to CPU load and memory load.
When he grimices in pain, your CPU load just went up. There are two
levels of this. And finally, when he's grinning, your CPU load just
went down.

It's fun to enable face-mode, and put the face in the middle of an
analog clock face, or interacting with something on your desktop, etc.
You get the idea.

== Performance Concerns ==
Since I use a lot of custom fonts, Konfabulator uses more memory
than you'd think. For each digit, K! loads a copy of the entire font
table. I might be able to reduce it further by breaking up the images
into separate files, but I'm satisfied with the status quo. Scaling
the graphics larger for the bar exponentially increases the number
of page faults generated.

The graphics are copyright 1993 ID Software, and used with permission.

Changelog

1.4.1 (9.10.2006)
+ fixed zOrder of new custom hovertips
+ turned off debug mode
* updated icon

1.4 (7.23.2006)
+ can Empty Trash from widget
+ new custom hovertips show even when widget is not focused

1.3 (1.29.2006)
+ Updates split up to be more efficient, some meters can be disabled now.
  (fixes problems people had with high utilization when accessing the disk)
* Digit packaging changed, should very slightly reduce pagefaults and
  memory usage, but increases package size.
+ New weird face shows up less often.
- fixed bug where volume didn't change scale.
+ widget now takes a 5 second nap when computer wakes up

1.2 (1.5.2006)
+ New Option: Reverse CPU/Memory. When enabled, CPU/Memory count down from 100,
  akin to health going from 100 to 0
- fixed bug that kept some faces from appearing
+ Weapon Slots now active. See documentation above to see how to use them.
* minor optimizations
+ Tooltips added to side meters
* Changed free space calculation method to Round from Floor

1.1 (12.27.2006)
+ The four meters on the right are now determined by preferences
+ Added WiFi side meter option
+ Disk meter has to be set by the user now (right click on \"DISK\")
- Redid some code because of the 3.0 Engine 

1.0.1
- bugfix

1.0
- First Public Release

  TODO:
  reduce pagefaults
  battery usage statistics

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