eyeball

eyeball is a simple utility that color-cycles terminal output based on the elapsed time since the previous line was written. This is useful, for example, when you've got a noisy process that produces a lot of similar looking output, making it hard to determine when activity occurs.

Check out this screenshot of an example session; note that the colour changes whenever dt ≥ 1000:

As of version 0.3.0, eyeball can also cycle colors every n lines or every n seconds by using the -l and -t options, respectively. See Customisation, below.

Installation

$ npm install -g eyeball

Usage

Default behaviour; change colour whenever time between successive writes is ≥ 1s.

$ my-process | eyeball

Change colour whenever output is delayed by 5s or more, cycling between red, green and blue:

$ my-process | eyeball -d 5 -c red,green,blue

Customisation

Usage: eyeball [options]

Options:
  -d DELAY, --delay=DELAY     Delay mode: cycle color when delay between
                              lines is >= DELAY. This is the default mode;
                              DELAY defaults to 1.
  -l LINES, --lines=LINES     Line mode: cycle color every LINES lines
  -t TIME, --time=TIME        Time mode: cycle color every TIME seconds
  -c COLORS, --colors=COLORS  List of colors to cycle [default: cyan,magenta]
  --no-reset                  Do no reset the timer after each line.
                              (Applies to "Delay" mode only)
  -v, --version               Display program version and quit
  -h, --help                  Display this message and quit

Modes

Delay

(This is the default mode)

In Delay mode, output color will cycle based on the time delay between writes; that is, a colour change is triggered whenever the time difference between any two successive lines is ≥ DELAY. The default value for DELAY is 1 second, overridable via the -d/--delay= option.

# color cycle on delay >= 1s
$ eyeball

# color cycle on delay >= 5.5s
$ my-process | eyeball -d 5.5
$ my-process | eyeball --delay=5.5

When --no-reset is specifed, the point of reference is adjusted such that colour change is instead triggered whenever the time since the previous colour change is ≥ DELAY.

Lines

In Lines mode, output color will cycle every n lines, as specified by the -l/--lines= option.

# color cycle every 3 lines
$ my-process | eyeball -l 3
$ my-process | eyeball --lines=3

Time

In Time mode, output color will cycle ever n seconds, as specified by the -t/--time= option.

# color cycle every 10 seconds
$ my-process | eyeball -t 10
$ my-process | eyeball --time=10

Supported options

• -c COLORS, --colors=COLORS: comma-separated list of colours through which to cycle.
  Supported values: red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, reset.

Copyright & License

© 2014 Jason Frame [ @jaz303 / jason@onehackoranother.com ]

Released under the ISC license.