bashfuzzyclock

bash-fuzzy-clock is a natural language or "fuzzy" clock script, written in Bash. Use it in Conky (Linux/BSD) or GeekTool (Mac) configurations as a desktop-agnostic fuzzy clock. Translated to six languages.

INSTALL:

If you're on Arch Linux you can install this from the AUR:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/bash-fuzzy-clock/

If not, from a terminal:

$ tar xf bash-fuzzy-clock.tar.gz
$ sudo install -v bash-fuzzy-clock.sh -m 0755 /usr/bin/bash-fuzzy-clock

If you need the French, German, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese translations, make sure you have LANGUAGE set in .bashrc (and for Conky, .xinitrc) or /etc/locale.conf

$ sudo msgfmt fr.po -o /usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/bash-fuzzy-clock.mo
$ sudo msgfmt de.po -o /usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/bash-fuzzy-clock.mo
$ sudo msgfmt es.po -o /usr/share/locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/bash-fuzzy-clock.mo
$ sudo msgfmt it.po -o /usr/share/locale/it/LC_MESSAGES/bash-fuzzy-clock.mo
$ sudo msgfmt pt.po -o /usr/share/locale/pt_BR/LC_MESSAGES/bash-fuzzy-clock.mo

USE

Just invoke it:

$ bash-fuzzy-clock
--> nearly twenty past seven

You can use the "m" option to display the general time of day:

$ bash-fuzzy-clock m
--> morning 

Using Conky, you can set the script to run every minute (or perhaps, if you just want, every five minutes). See https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/wiki for Conky's wiki.

On an Apple computer, you can use GeekTool to display the clock on your screen, using a Shell Geeklet: see https://lifehacker.com/5834676/build-an-attractive-informative-mac-desktop-with-geektool

WHAT IS A FUZZY CLOCK?

Fuzzy clocks display a generalisation of the time in informal or natural language. They only give precise time on the hour and at five-minute intervals from the hour.

WHY ANOTHER FUZZY CLOCK?

There are a number of fuzzy clock implementations which

1. don't work in any other language than English;
2. are not fuzzy - they simply display the exact time in words; or
3. require Python

and at the time of first writing the script, I couldn't find a clock that I liked. So I made one that only required Bash, was fuzzy, and was (to the limits of my language knowledge) translatable.