Command-Line Cloud: gcalcli

Kyle starts a series on using the cloud (in this case, Google  Calendar) from the comfort of the command line.  If you follow my columns in Linux The first cloud service I thought  Journal, you probably are aware that I'd cover also is one of the most  I'm a big fan of the command line. prevalent: Google Calendar.  When it comes to getting things Although a lot of calendaring  done efficiently, most of the time the options exist, in a corporate  command line can't be beat. This has environment, you often are talking  led me to integrating services like about either Exchange (usually  instant messaging and Twitter into larger, older-school companies)  BitlBee so I can use them with my or Google Apps (usually smaller  command-line IRC client lrssi (both startups). C-ioogle Calendar can  written up in previous LJ issues). be pretty convenient as a shared  You probably also are aware that calendar, particularly if you are  unlike some other Linux Journal issued an Android device at work.  writers out there (I'm looking at you Plus, like with all major cloud  Bill Childers), I'm a bit more skeptical services, you can collaborate and  of cloud services. That said, in this day share your data with other people  and age, it seems you can't escape (like the NSA). |\/ly main problem  cloud services, so what's a guy like me with Google Calendar always has  to do? Well, l've just figured out how been having to open up a browser  to use cloud services from the comfort every time I want to view my  of my green-on-black terminal. So, I calendar. Although I'm sure some  figured it might be interesting to write people are logged in to the Gmail  a few articles describing how you can Web interface all day and get  access various cloud services from the meeting notifications that way, I'm  command line. not. Because I'm usually glued to



After missing a few meetings, I decided I needed  to find some way to put meeting notifications  inside my terminal.

my terminal window, I often don't  see those reminders. After missing  a few meetings, I decided I needed  to find some way to put meeting  notifications inside my terminal.  The CLI to Google Calendar  that worked for me was gcalcli. It  provides a command-line interface  to view your calendar in various  formats and also lets you add  events—aIl from the command line.  Install gcalcli  gcalcli itself was not packaged  for my distribution, so installation  took me a few extra steps. First, I  cloned the project's git repository  into a local directory named src  that I use to keep track of source  code (feel free to replace this  with the directory you use for the  same purpose). Then, I created a  symlink to the included script sol  At this point, I tried to launch the  application but noticed I was missing  a few required Python libraries, such  as gflags, dateutil, httplib2 and  google-api-python-client. The first  three had Debian packages, so I was  able to install them with:  $ sudo apt-get install python-gflags python-dateuttl  bpython-httplib2  The final Python library wasn't  packaged in Debian. For better or  worse, it seems just about every  modern scripting language has its  own implementation of Perl’s CPAN,  so I fell back to using Python's pip  (which I first had to install):  $ sudo apt-get install python-pip  $ sudo pip install -—upgrade google-api-python-client  Initial Setup  could start identifying what Python With all of the libraries in place,  libraries I'd need:  $ cd ~/src/  $ git clone https://github.com/insanum/gcalcli.git  you are ready to set up gcalcli to  use your Google account. The first  time gcalcli is run, it will set up  your account, but if you are not  $sudo In s ~/src/gcalcli/gcalcli /usr/local/bin/gcalcli running It TFOITI your local machine you Will want ‘[0 add an extra 10:00am Meeting with the Bobs  argument the first time you launch 11:00am Remodel Cubical watt  it so it can provide you with a URL 11:45am Lunch at F11'nger's  to load locally to authorize gcalcli: 1:00pm Meeting with Michael  $ gcalcli agenda —-noauth_1ocal_webserver |'V€ fOUfid thé agenda OUtpU'[ ’[O  be the most useful for seeing what’  Once it's set up, you can see your on my plate for the day; however,  current calendar agenda with the you also can use calw and calm  agenda command (the events have to output ASCII-art-style weekly  been changed to protect the innocent): and monthly calendars, respectively  (Figure 1).  $ gcalcli agenda  Meeting Notifications in Screen  Mon Jul 15 9:15am Space out and Stare at screen Having access to my calendar from

Because notifications in screen are simply scripts  that output short lines of text, what I want to do  is tell gcalcli to display the next meeting in my  agenda today that hasn’t yet started, or if there  are no more meetings today, to display nothing.

the command line is handy, but it  still doesn't quite solve my problem  of getting notifications so I don't  miss an important meeting. I'm  sure many people simply rely on  the pop-up notification in their  browsers, but I usually am not  looking at my browser, and when  I am, I'm not logged in to Gmail. I  am, however, almost always looking  at a screen session, so I found the  best approach for me was to put  notifications there.  I wrote about how to set  up screen notifications in my  February 2011 Hack and / column,  so I recommend reading that  column if you haven't set up  your hardstatus line yet. Because  notifications in screen are simply  scripts that output short lines  of text, what I want to do is tell  gcalcli to display the next meeting  in my agenda today that hasn t  yet started, or if there are no  more meetings today, to display  nothing. That way, I can see at a  glance what meeting is next.  The first step is to create a  basic shell script in my local ~/bin/  directory called gagenda that calls  gcalcli with extra arguments and  then parses the results:  $ gcalcli - nocolor nostarted agenda date " 11:59pm  -vgrep -v No Events‘ | head -2 | tail -1 | grep -v "‘$  With this long one-liner, I tell  gcalcli to show me all of the events  on my agenda that haven't started  (--nostarted) between now  ("‘date‘ ") and 11:59pm. Then if  there are no events, I grep that out  so I get empty output. If there are  results, I use head and tail to pull  out the line I want. Finally, if the  line is empty I also grep that out.  The end result is a single line of  output suitable for screen.  Of course, I didn't want to  stop there. What I wanted was  for regular events to show up in
The key to having a status appear to change  colors is to have different backtick commands  show up in the same location, each assigned  its own color.
white on my output, but then as wtail -1 | grep -v 'As- > /tmp/gagenda-urgent
the meeting got closer, I thought #1f there are no urgent events, look for warning
it would be nice if it turned to re events in the next 10 minutes
yellow and then finally to red. Also, rr r ! -5 /tmp/gagenda-urgent 1; then
when commands in your screen gcalcli --nocolor --nostarted agenda "‘date“' “date -a
hardstatus line take a long time to --nen e 10 m1'nutes"" | grep -v ‘No Events’ | head -2 |
run, the whole screen session can wtail -1 | grep -v r~$- > /tmp/gagenda-warning
stall, so my solution was to have my # rr there are no warning events. just grab the next
gagenda script redirect the output # event for the day
to a few temporary files. The key to rr r r -S /tmp/gagenda-warning 1; then
having a status appear to change gcalcli --nocolor --nostarted agenda "‘date"‘ 11:59pm 1
colors is to have different backtick -grep -v ‘No Events‘ 1 head -2 | tail -1|
commands show up in the same -grep -v -Ag > /tmp/gagenda
location, each assigned its own else
color. Then as long as you make cat /dev/null > /tmp/gagenda
sure that only one of the commands n
will display output at any time, you else
get the illusion that you have only cat /dev/null > /tmp/gagenda-warning
one status that changes color. Here cat /dev/null > /tmp/gagenda
is the resulting gagenda shell script n
to accomplish that:
Now l edited my local user's crontab
#!/bin/bash with crontab -e to add gagenda:
# first look for urgent events occurring * * * * * /home/greenfly/bin/gagenda
# in the next five minutes
gcalcli --nocolor --nostarted agenda "‘date"‘ “date -e To configure screen.