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Konversation: notify via console beeps

Submitted by Druss on Sun, 2007-12-23 03:19

Konversation is an excellent IRC client for KDE. However, it lacks a rather fundamental (IMHO) option - event notification via console/system beeps. While it has notification options to alert the user via ogg, wav and other sound formats, if one does not have external speakers / headphones, one does not get alerted. As a result, one misses important messages and thereby one gets mucho cranky.

Solving this, as I found out, is simple. Konversation supports the running of executables when an event is triggered. So, all I had to do was to find out how the trigger a console beep via the command-line. Typing beep (and I am not swearing here) informed me that I had to install beep :P A sudo apt-get install beep later, I was set. I typed "beep" and boom! my PC beeped.

To configure Konversation:

  • Click on the "Settings" menu and select "Configure Notifications".
  • Choose the event you want to be alerted for and click the "Advanced" button at the bottom.
  • Check "Execute a program" and type beep inside the textfield and click OK.

... and you are done. If you want to get fancy, type man beep in the command line to learn how to customise beeps by altering their frequency, duration, repeats etc. For e.g., I use a single beep when my nick is mentioned in a conversation and double beeps when someone PMs me directly.

If you have no life, you can port your ring-tone over as well. The beep man page has more details :D