gil_beats

This command-line program deals with the Swatch Internet Time.

Features:

• calculates the current @beats
• supports @beats to H:m:s time format
• outputs in several formats:
  • Bitbar/Xbar/Swiftbar
  • JSON
  • raw text

It's also usable in other Rust programs as a library.

CLI examples

Supports several output formats:

$ gil_beats
@469

$ gil_beats --format=json
{"beats":469,"time":"11:15:21"}

$ gil_beats --format=swiftbar
@469
---
11:15:21 | href=https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=6&month=11&year=2021&beats=469&p1=0

Beats to time:

$ gil_beats --beats 500 --format json
{"beats":500,"time":"12:00:00"}

History

One day, after we had been given an hour (change from summer time to winter time, daylight saving time (DST)), there was a small discussion on Twitter about when the European Union would finally implement its plans to abolish daylight saving time.

Someone mentioned Swatch Internet Time, a time-zone-less time format from 1998. The idea was unsuccessful.

Unimpressed by all this, I thought a program that will help me deal with the Internet Time could be a nice little project to invest the hour well and learn some Rust. Here it is.

Since I have no intention of making it a full-fledged crate, and due to lack of name-finding creativity, I have prefixed the obvious name beats with my first name and hence called it gil_beats.

Usage & Development

1. Install Rust (e.g. rustup, via your version manager or brew install rust or which method you prefer)
2. git clone https://github.com/gildesmarais/gil_beats.git and cd into it
3. To run: cargo run -- --help
4. To install: cargo install --path ., check for warnings and act, eventually run it: gil_beats

Use with Bitbar/XBar/Swiftbar...

To have the current @beats displayed in your menu bar, use:

• https://github.com/matryer/xbar or
• https://github.com/swiftbar/SwiftBar

and install gil_beats (see instructions above). Then, create this script in your *bar plugins folder, called e.g. gil_beats.87s.sh:

#!/bin/sh

"$HOME/.cargo/bin/gil_beats" --format=swiftbar

# or:
# gil_beats --format=swiftbar

Finally, chmod +x gil_beats.87s.sh and a new item on your menu bar should appear.