# Why doesn't dzen2 display text?



## sw2wolf (May 31, 2013)

`echo "Today"; cal; sleep 20 | dzen2 -x 200 -y 200 -w 200 -bg blue -fg white -l 8`

The dzen2 window appears without any text on it.

Sincerely!


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## Dies_Irae (May 31, 2013)

That's because you are passing to dzen2 only the output of `sleep 20`: that is, nothing.

You must use parentheses to see the output of the other commands:
`(echo "Today"; cal; sleep 20) | dzen2 -x 200 -y 200 -w 200 -bg blue -fg white -l 8`


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## sw2wolf (Jun 1, 2013)

Dies_Irae said:
			
		

> That's because you are passing to dzen2 only the output of `sleep 20`: that is, nothing.
> 
> You must use parentheses to see the output of the other commands:
> `(echo "Today"; cal; sleep 20) | dzen2 -x 200 -y 200 -w 200 -bg blue -fg white -l 8`


In fact `echo "hello world" | dzen2 -x 200 -y 200 -w 200 -bg blue -fg white -l 8 -p 5` still does not work either.

Regards!


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## Dies_Irae (Jun 3, 2013)

sw2wolf said:
			
		

> In fact `echo "hello world" | dzen2 -x 200 -y 200 -w 200 -bg blue -fg white -l 8 -p 5` still does not work either.



This is strange, I have copied your command, pasted it in a terminal and it worked.
Maybe you have some problem with your terminal colors and/or dzen2 X resources in your ~/.Xresources?


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## sw2wolf (Jun 4, 2013)

There is no ~/.Xresources but ~/.Xdefault

Regards!


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