From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Received: from gatech.edu (gatech.edu [130.207.244.244]) by werple.net.au (8.7/8.7) with SMTP id PAA27582 for <mason@werple.mira.net.au>; Wed, 18 Oct 1995 15:32:30 +1000 (EST)
Received: from euclid (euclid.skiles.gatech.edu) by gatech.edu with SMTP id AA21578
  (5.65c/Gatech-10.0-IDA for <mason@werple.mira.net.au>); Wed, 18 Oct 1995 01:28:47 -0400
Received: by euclid (5.x/SMI-SVR4)
	id AA02819; Wed, 18 Oct 1995 01:27:09 -0400
Resent-Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 01:24:38 -0400
Old-Return-Path: <coleman@math.gatech.edu>
Message-Id: <9510180524.AA24737@redwood.skiles.gatech.edu>
X-Mailer: exmh version 1.6.4 10/10/95
To: mcampbel@schubert.sbi.com
Cc: zsh-workers@math.gatech.edu
Subject: Re: "Watch" function? 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 10 Oct 1995 15:53:13 EDT."
             <9510101953.AA08115@offenbach.sbi.com> 
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 01:24:38 -0400
From: Richard Coleman <coleman@math.gatech.edu>
Resent-Message-Id: <"gZKrr1.0.wh.i09Xm"@euclid>
Resent-From: zsh-workers@math.gatech.edu
X-Mailing-List: <zsh-workers@math.gatech.edu> archive/latest/472
X-Loop: zsh-workers@math.gatech.edu
Precedence: list
Resent-Sender: zsh-workers-request@math.gatech.edu

> I asked about this a *long* time ago, and heard nothing, so I'll forward the
> idea again and see if it flies.
> 
> Instead of/in addition to being able to specify a format string for the
> "watch" facility, how hard would it be to have a special function which, if
> defined, would be called whenever the "watch" facility "saw" someone
> login/logout?  (Akin to precmd(), periodic(), chpwd(), etc.)
> 
> My thought is to pop up a Perl/Tk window when someone logged in, rather than
> just printing it in the xterm.
> 
> Does this sound do-able?  Would anyone even use it?  (Other than me, of
> course.)

I meant to reply to this earlier but got sidetracked.  Having zsh execute
a shell function at this point is easy.  The hard part is passing all the
information that you can access in WATCHFMT to this shell function.  We
would probably have to create more special parameters to do this.  I'm
not sure if it is worth it.

Richard Coleman
coleman@math.gatech.edu