Flan Reference Manual ¶

1.1 Downloading Flan ¶

Flan is licensed under the Anton McClure Software License Terms. See the file LICENSE for details.

Tarballs downloads are available from Anton McClure’s FTP server over either the FTP, HTTP, and HTTPs protocols.

• Requirements

1.2 Running Flan ¶

Assuming that you’ve got a Flan configuration file set up already, simply run the command:

$flan /optional/path/to/config

If your are not currently using X11, you should run it with xinit like so:

$xinit flan /optional/path/to/config

If all goes well, Flan should open on your current TTY. If you want to automate Flan, you may use the included systemd service file to do so. By default, the systemd script is configured to use TTY7 as Flan is intended to run standalone without an underlying desktop environment or window manager.

If you need to set up your config file, the next chapter, "Settings", goes over all of the settings categories and options that you will find in the standard issue sample config.

2.1 Main Settings ¶

These, long with source (ICS/XML) files, were the first editable options in Flan, with the goal of making it useful for more than just room 101 at the University of Akron College of Business.

refresh ¶

Time between data reloads.

days ¶

Number of days shown on-screen.

logo ¶

XPM image file used as on-screen logo.

title ¶

Title of calendar/organization.

mode ¶

File type used. This can be either ics for calendar files, or xml for XML documents.

regex ¶

Expression used to separate title and subtitle.

2.2 Font Settings ¶

All of the fonts must be written using the X Logical Font Description (XLFD) format.

m ¶

Primary calendar font

a ¶

Secondary header font

l ¶

Primary header font

d ¶

Secondary calendar font

i ¶

Info bar font

2.3 Color Settings ¶

t_bgc ¶

Header background color

t_txt ¶

Header text color

b_bgc ¶

Calendar background color

b_txt ¶

Calendar text color

s_bgc ¶

Info bar background color

s_txt ¶

Info bar text color

c_bgc ¶

Cell background color

2.4 Text Settings ¶

Text is just written with the left and right sides separated by ‘\\’. This is not the default text, but Anton did not like how the PDF copy formatted it when the default text was used here.

‘Left side text\\Right side text’

2.5 SRC Settings ¶

Calendars are just written as title=link.

‘Test 1=ftp://ftp.example.cascaded.org/cal/test1.ics’

2.6 All Together ¶

All of the default settings as intended may look something like this:

; Sample flan.cfg for Flan
; http://www.antonmcclure.com/software/flan
;
; Copyright (C) 2025-2026 Anton McClure
; All rights reserved.

[main]
refresh=3600
days=3
logo=/usr/local/share/flan/default.xpm
title=Planning Flan
mode=ics
regex=^(.+)[[:space:]]?--[[:space:]]?(.*)

[fonts]
m=-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal-*-20-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
a=-*-times-bold-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
l=-*-new century schoolbook-bold-r-normal-*-34-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
d=-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal-*-17-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
i=-*-new century schoolbook-medium-r-*-*-17-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

[colors]
t_bgc=#4A6B8C
t_txt=#FFFFFF
b_bgc=#CCD3D7
b_txt=#224466
s_bgc=#3A5B71
s_txt=#E3E3E5
c_bgc=#FFFFFF

[text]
This is the planning flan\\This is test text
Save this to /usr/local/etc/flan.cfg\\and edit as needed.

[src]
Test 1=/usr/local/share/flan/test1.ics
Test 2=/usr/local/share/flan/test2.ics
Test 3=/usr/local/share/flan/test3.ics