A simple command-line tool that retains the main feature of the linux watch command and supports scrollable output.
watching adds the following features to make the watch command more user-friendly for certain use cases:
Useful for situations where the output of the command cannot fit into the entire terminal window.
The default behavior of watch in such cases is to keep only the characters that will fit into the screen
while discarding the rest, which isn't ideal for all cases. watching circumvents that by retaining all
characters of the output of the command and allowing you to scroll through them.
demo_scrolling.mp4
Vim-style scrolling is supported: to scroll down, press j; to scroll up, press k
IMPORTANT:
Please note that watching is not meant to replace the linux watch command.
As such, not all features and flags of the watch command is implemented. For example,
watching does not support the ability to take screenshots. For those use cases, it makes
more sense to use the watch command. watching is useful for a specific use case only:
when you need to scroll through the command output you're watching.
Clone this repository and run the setup script.
Python 3.60+
watching [{-n | --interval} <time_seconds>] [{-h | --help}] [{-w | --no-wrap}] [{-t | --no-title}] <cmd> [args]
-
-n,--intervalThe watch interval. Takes precedence over the
WATCH_INTERVALenvironment variable. -
-w,--no-wrapTurn off line wrapping. Long lines will be truncated instead of wrapped to the next line.
-
-t,--no-titleTurn off the heading normally shown at the top of the screen.
jto scroll downkto scroll upqto quit
The behavior of watching is affected by the following environment variables:
-
WATCH_INTERVALUpdate interval, follows the same rules as the
--intervalcommand line option