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I'd like to display a very large message, e.g. 1" high letters on the screen of a workstation.

I.e. something like "Today's stock price is $xx"

I could use gnome-terminal if I could set the font scale high enough, and the height to just one.

I tried zenity, but there doesn't seem to be a way to set the font size or get rid of the icon and 'ok' button.

Any recommendations?


ETA: the best I've done so far is

gnome-terminal --hide-menubar --zoom 4 --geometry 50x3 -e watch-stock.sh
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  • You could create a captcha and use that as background image.
    – ott--
    Aug 12, 2013 at 18:09

2 Answers 2

2

A nice & funny way to do it

$ xx='12'
$ figlet "Today's stock price is $xx"
 _____         _             _           _             _    
|_   _|__   __| | __ _ _   _( )___   ___| |_ ___   ___| | __
  | |/ _ \ / _` |/ _` | | | |// __| / __| __/ _ \ / __| |/ /
  | | (_) | (_| | (_| | |_| | \__ \ \__ \ || (_) | (__|   < 
  |_|\___/ \__,_|\__,_|\__, | |___/ |___/\__\___/ \___|_|\_\
                       |___/                                
            _            _       _ ____  
 _ __  _ __(_) ___ ___  (_)___  / |___ \ 
| '_ \| '__| |/ __/ _ \ | / __| | | __) |
| |_) | |  | | (_|  __/ | \__ \ | |/ __/ 
| .__/|_|  |_|\___\___| |_|___/ |_|_____|

Just run

sudo apt-get install figlet

before ;)

A programmable text box using QT & python

qt+python

The code :

#!/usr/bin/python
# simple text box with configurable font size
# require the price as script argument
myFontSize = 60

from PyQt4 import QtGui
from PyQt4 import QtCore
import sys

def main():

    app     = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    palette = QtGui.QPalette()
    label   = QtGui.QLabel("Today's stock price is $" + sys.argv[1])

    palette.setColor(QtGui.QPalette.Foreground,QtCore.Qt.green)
    label.setPalette(palette)

    label.resize(800, 150)
    font = label.font()
    font.setPixelSize(myFontSize)
    label.setFont(font)

    label.setWindowTitle('PyQt QLabel Text Color')
    label.show()

    sys.exit(app.exec_())


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

I run the script like this in a terminal :

python script.py 12

You need to install python's qt binding :

sudo apt-get install python-qt4
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  • +1 for writing a script. Of course, now I have to install Qt4 to use it... Jun 15, 2013 at 1:49
  • Yes, I think you need python-qt4, tell me if I'm wrong. Jun 15, 2013 at 2:27
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What about using sm (screen-message) It works from your terminal, although you can assign a key combination for quick access it's also available on your browser (tested in iceweasel/firefox) The link to the author page is here --> http://www.joachim-breitner.de/projects

Good luck!

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  • That's a nice little app. Unfortunately, it completely fills the screen, while I just wanted a window with large text. I'm sure I'll find other uses for this app, though. Aug 12, 2013 at 18:46
  • What about background transparency?
    – Moesio
    Nov 22, 2019 at 17:14

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