osdchat 0.1.8

osdchat is a simple messaging utility that allows you to remotely send messages directly to the screen as an on-screen display (OSD).

This may be used a lightweight messaging service in a local area network to message busy admins or communicate with friends who like to watch fullscreen movies or otherwise cannot see whats going on in the background.

There is a wide assortment of options to customize the look, feel, and location of the incoming messages.

I suppose it also shares some similarity with the ancient UNIX utility write, except that tty has been replaced with X. osdchat has been tested only under Linux, specifically Gentoo 1.4 and Slackware 9.0/1, but should work on any full distribution meeting the dependencies.

Installlation:

tar zxvf osdchat-[version].tar.gz
cd osdchat-[version]

Edit the Makefile as needed to change the install paths.

make check (md5sum check to make sure files are intact)
make
make install (need to be root, or have proper capabilities)

Copy sample osdchatd.conf configuration file to /etc or rename to .osdchatd and place it in your home directory. Change settings as desired.

The sample config file is equivalent to the built-in defaults, so a config file is not needed to just test the package.