Rolex

rolex is a better watch(1). It can run a command periodically, displaying its output in the full width and height of the terminal, but it can also:

• run multiple commands in split panes, independently configured, that adjust to changes in terminal size
• dynamically change the time between runs of individual commands
• dynamically add and remove new commands
• pause and unpause command runs
• highlight differences in a command's output from the previous run ("diff last" mode) or against the output at a particular point in time ("diff mark" mode)
• highlight matches of a pattern in a command's output
• manually rerun a command
• render a time-series ASCII bar graph of the numerical values in a command's output

Quick start

rolex is implemented in Python, in a single executable script, and has no dependencies beyond the Python standard library.

$ curl -L https://github.com/hut8labs/rolex/raw/master/rolex.py > rolex
$ chmod +x rolex
$ ./rolex command1 arg1 arg2 -- command2 arg1

Pressing "?" or "h" in rolex will display keybindings in less (or $PAGER).

A screenshot

Todo

Some work in progress and feature ideas:

• pane resizing/moving
• 256-color support
• graph mode
• friendly time ("2h23m ago")
• better configuration
• pausing/resuming individual commands