Troubleshooting own_window_type panel...One thing to watch out for!

For those of you who haven't seen my post over at the Conky Blog, my latest creation is a panel-like Conky to sit at the top of my screen and show my processes, date/time and battery state:

From Screenshots

From Screenshots

As I alluded to in the post, however, you need to make sure that if your panel text is all on one line, your code must ALSO be all on one line, or it will make your Conky too fat!

For example, the code that produced the panel in the screenie is:

TEXT
${goto 5}${voffset 3}CPU ${cpu}%${goto 60}${voffset -1}${font saxMono:size=8}[${top name 1} (${top cpu 1})] [${top name 2} (${top cpu 2})] [${top name 3} (${top cpu 3})]${font}${goto 425}${voffset -1}MEM ${memperc}%${goto 485}${voffset -1}${font saxMono:size=8}[${top_mem name 1} (${top_mem mem 1})] [${top_mem name 2} (${top_mem mem 2})] [${top_mem name 3} (${top_mem mem 3})]${font}${voffset -2}${font Sawasdee Bold:size=10}${alignr 5}${time %a, %d %b %Y %H.%M}${image ~/Pictures/bk_semi_trans_sq.png -s 1024x18 -p 0,0}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 14}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_1.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 27}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_2.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 41}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_3.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 54}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_4.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 68}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_5.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 82}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_6.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} < 95}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_7.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_full.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${endif}${endif}${endif}${endif}${endif}${endif}${endif}

...uh, kind of a mess. HOWEVER, if you try to clean it up by putting line breaks in between the text and each of the two $image calls, a la:

TEXT
${goto 5}${voffset 3}CPU ${cpu}%${goto 60}${voffset -1}${font saxMono:size=8}[${top name 1} (${top cpu 1})] [${top name 2} (${top cpu 2})] [${top name 3} (${top cpu 3})]${font}${goto 425}${voffset -1}MEM ${memperc}%${goto 485}${voffset -1}${font saxMono:size=8}[${top_mem name 1} (${top_mem mem 1})] [${top_mem name 2} (${top_mem mem 2})] [${top_mem name 3} (${top_mem mem 3})]${font}${voffset -2}${font Sawasdee Bold:size=10}${alignr 5}${time %a, %d %b %Y %H.%M}
${image ~/Pictures/bk_semi_trans_sq.png -s 1024x18 -p 0,0}
${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 14}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_1.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 27}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_2.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 41}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_3.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 54}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_4.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 68}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_5.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} <= 82}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_6.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${if_match ${battery_percent BAT1} < 95}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_7.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${else}${image ~/Pictures/Batteries/battery_full.png -s 16x16 -p 845,1}${endif}${endif}${endif}${endif}${endif}${endif}${endif}

...Conky will think that your output should be three lines wide, and will size your window accordingly, and you won't be able to shrink it back to that one line. Believe me, I tried! (And nearly threw my netbook out the window out of frustration before I figured it out.) You will get something that looks like this:

From My Little Desktop Photos

So, in short, it's a little bit of a pain to have to code it all on one line (and more than a little confusing!), but it's definitely worth it.

Special thanks go out to *MrStylo for his battery icons and =mrcool256 for his wallpaper.