How-tos – ojdo

How to use TikZ externalize with PGFgantt

I recently switched on tikzexternalize on a document with several figures created by TikZ in it. Activating this Tikz library has the advantage of compiling the figures only once (if unchanged), speeding up the creation of the completed document. As a nice side benefit, one gets the images as separate PDF files, which in my case was the main motivation. One simple call to ImageMagick later, one has all images in a format of choice. However, I could not get it to work at first due to my using the PGFgantt package to create a gantt time chart. Here is the (not compiling) start point: Continue reading “How to use TikZ externalize with PGFgantt”

Finally the definitive full-frame graphic commands for beamer in LaTeX

After my two (!) previous posts on the same topic, it’s time to give my final entry for the competition of the definitive full-frame graphics command for use with beamer in LaTeX. To seal the deal, I do not propose 1, but 4 commands, depending on your use case: Continue reading “Finally the definitive full-frame graphic commands for beamer in LaTeX”

How-to make WordPress theme Twenty Sixteen completely dark

Through a custom child theme and 6 carefully built CSS rules, I have completely darkened all remaining bright elements of my WordPress installation. Here’s the result.

Roughly each year, WordPress releases a new default theme that ships with a fresh WordPress installation. As of writing, this blog relies on Twenty Sixteen. Through its Customize option, it is possible to change most colours of the theme without having to dive into the editor at all. However, this left me with some elements that were to bright for my taste: text inputs, buttons and widget borders. So I had to use some custom styles to complete the transition. Read on for all the boring details! 🙂 Continue reading “How-to make WordPress theme Twenty Sixteen completely dark”

How to only color external links in LaTeX

Package hyperref is quite handy for making a compiled LaTeX document more accessible, by allowing to quickly jump to references (back to the text with package backref), section headings (from the table of contents) and weblinks.

By default, links are marked by a coloured rectangles, which only appear on screen, not in print. If one wants to get rid of the rectangles, there are options. However, there is also the colorlinks that marks hyperlinks by changing their text colour. However, these makes all link types become coloured. There is a way to reset certain link types to the default text colour, just by setting their colour to an empty value like this:

\hypersetup{colorlinks=true,linkcolor=,urlcolor=blue}

The trick is the empty value for linkcolor. It applies to internal links (e.g. entries in the table of contents listing), which are thus not touched. This trick can be extended to the other fields citecolor, anchorcolor if needed, to either not change or change their colour.

How to launch Cygwin in the active FreeCommander directory

Under Windows, I rely on trusty FreeCommander for all my file management needs. And I use Cygwin for having my most needed shell programs nearby. Sometimes there is the need to quickly open a Cygwin terminal in the current folder within FreeCommander.Luckily, there is already a popular StackOverflow question for that. Unfortunately, most answers rely on registry editing or installing the additional chere utility. However, the answer by user Tom Kay does neither and works quite well for FreeCommander. Here is how: Continue reading “How to launch Cygwin in the active FreeCommander directory”

How to include your ownCloud calendar into Outlook (read-only)

Say you have your contacts and calendar synchronised via your own private or trusted ownCloud instance. But then at your workplace, you have to use Outlook for your work stuff. Then there is the occasional late appointment, and you run into collisions because you did not look at your private calendar before accepting a meeting invitation. What to do? Wouldn’t it be nice to see your private calendar as an overlay directly in Outlook?

Search no further, the solution is Continue reading “How to include your ownCloud calendar into Outlook (read-only)”

How to list subdirectories recursively with total size

Just a note to myself, as I always have a hard time understanding the find manpages. To list the directories and subdirectories up to a certain depth, “simply” enter:

find . -maxdepth 2 -type d

Option maxdepth states how deep the subdirectories should be listed, option type restricts output to directories (d).

If a directory listing including size is required, this much shorter snippet does the trick, using du (disk usage), the counterpart to the often-used df (disk free):

du -hd 1

Option h triggers human-readable output, replacing size byte count (5820) with SI prefixed numbers (5.8K), while d limits the recursion depth like before.

How to remap the Win button on a Microsoft Sculpt Comfort mouse

If you use the Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Desktop with its gorgeously sculpted keyboard and the round pebblestone mouse, you might not need the brightly branded “Windows” button on the mouse. Program AutoHotkey to the rescue! Simply remap the Right Windows key (that conveniently does not exist on most keyboards anyway) to any other convenient key press, script, autostring, …

In this example, I map the Browse forward action to the button, because the button below can be configured to browse backwards:

RWin::Browser_Forward

The definitive full-frame graphic command for beamer in LaTeX

2018-06-02: This content has been superseded by this newer post: Finally the definitive full-frame graphic commands for beamer in LaTeX. Look there for an updated version.

After my previous post on the same topic, I have improved upon the command considerably. This time, it is based on Matthew Leingang’s answer on the question Image on full slide in beamer package.

Usage:

\fullframegraphic[optional credits]{path/to/image}

To use, copy this definition in your preamble. Requires package tikz.

\newcommand{\fullframegraphic}[2][]{%
\begin{frame}%
\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay]%
\node[at=(current page.center)] {%
\includegraphics[height=\paperheight,width=\paperwidth,keepaspectratio]{#2}%
};%
% optional argument: credits on lower-right corner
\ifx\relax#1\relax\else%
\node[at=(current page.south east), anchor=south east,font=\tiny,text=white,fill=black,fill opacity=.5,text opacity=1,inner sep=2pt,text height=1ex,text depth=.25ex] {#1};%
\fi%
\end{tikzpicture}%
\end{frame}}

Visual example (for the credits overlay):

Source: File:DA_Cambridge_c1937.jpg on Wikimedia Commons

How to add subcategories to templates in WordPress

This is the snippet I have added to my category template in my blog’s child theme. I paste the following snippet usually after the taxonomy-description paragraph. This is how it looks (the two paragraphs Parents and Subcategories):

This is the code:

<?php
    // Parents
    $parents = get_category_parents($cat, true, " +++ ");
    $parents = explode(" +++ ", $parents);
    $parents = array_slice($parents, 0, -2);
?>
<?php if ( count($parents) > 0 ) : ?>
<div class="taxonomy-parents"><em>Parents:</em> <?php print(implode(', ',$parents)); ?></div>
<?php endif; ?>

<?php
    // Subcategories
    $list = wp_list_categories('depth=-1&orderby=name&style=none&echo=0&title_li=&child_of='.$cat); 
    $list = substr(trim(str_replace('<br />', ', ', $list)), 0, -1); // replace newlines by commas, trim whitespace, cut of final comma
?>
<?php if ( !preg_match("/No categorie/",$list) ) : ?>
<div class="taxonomy-subcategories"><em>Subcategories:</em> <?php echo $list; ?></div>
<?php endif; ?>