ticker: A different ticker this time

Almost exactly a year ago, I ran past ticker. Today is another ticker, which is related only mildly.

 

This ticker takes a different tack than the previous, by limiting itself to horizontal placements (at the top or bottom) and to regularly sized text. Compare that to the previous ticker, which ran vertically and expands text in a way similar to what figlet and its ilk does.

(For the record, I tried to reroute figlet through new ticker, but it wasn’t prepared to deal with that arrangement of text data, and all I got were the uppermost lines. If you find a way around that, let me know.)

This new ticker also allows some color control, for both foreground and background effects. It’s also prepared to poll its text source at intervals, which means you can update the information it gets without disrupting or rerunning the program.

I like ticker for the obvious reasons — it’s light, it’s clean and it has color. It’s simple enough that it doesn’t require a lot of work or dependencies to put together, but isn’t so convoluted as to pollute the final output.

So now you have a horizontal ticker, and a vertical one too. Will wonders never cease? 😛