[Remind-Fans] Remind, Growl, and Time-Based Reminders

[John Shafer]

Mike (and everyone else),

Here is my description of what is probably an unnecessarily complex  
implementation of remind + growl on Mac OS X.  Caveats:  requires  
modifying your .bash_profile and having a terminal window open at all  
times (which can be somewhat circumvented, see below) and require 10.4

1:  add these 4 lines to your .bash_profile:

alias greprem='grep AT Reminders.txt > Run_Reminders.txt'
alias growlrem="remind -z1 -k'growlnotify -s -t Reminder -m %s &' ~/ 
Run_Reminders.txt &"
greprem
growlstills

Explanation:  the first line makes an alias called "greprem" that  
uses grep to search your reminders file for any lines containing the  
string 'AT' (mine is ~/Reminders.txt, just replace my file with the  
location of yours) and dumps the results into a new file called  
Run_Reminders.txt (again, you can call it whatever you like, just  
change the name).  This of course, finds all the timed reminders (and  
any other reminders with AT in it, so be careful).  The 2nd line is  
the actual remind call where I use the -k flag to pipe the output  
into growl.  Growl comes with the command line utility growlnotify  
(check the man page to see what all the optional flags are and what I  
set).  Again, substitute your file with mine.  Then the next two  
lines call these two aliases every time a bash login occurs, i.e.,  
every time I start a terminal session.  when you close the terminal  
session, the remind functions are also killed.  So you need to have a  
window open at all times.

2:  Download and install WidgetTerm.  This is a fully functional  
terminal for your Dashboard.  You can then start WidgetTerm, have a  
window open in your dashboard and remind will run continuously.  That  
at least keeps the window out of the way.  And WidgetTerm allows you  
to minimize it's window, so it can actual use very little space if  
you are cramped on your Dashboard.

3.  Everytime you add a new reminder that uses the AT function in  
remind, you can just activate dashboard, type in greprem at the  
prompt, and your Run_Reminder list will be updated.

4.  Enjoy your timed reminders notifying you via growl.

Ok, here are some suggestions for improvements for all the UNIX  
gurus.  I know that remind can be setup to run where it won't be  
killed if you close the terminal window.  I actually got that to  
work, but it seemed flakey and was prone to creating zombies and  
seemingly not working properly.  Regex gurus could probably easily  
create a better grep search pattern than I did that will actually  
allow you to use the word "at" without it being necessarily being  
moved into my Run_Reminders file.  Actually, there is probably a way  
to avoid ever having to use this 2nd file.  At any rate, this method,  
combined with GeekTool to display my calendar on my desktop works  
well for me.  Hopefully, someone it'll help someone.

***************************************************
John Shafer
Ph.D. Candidate
University of Notre Dame
Dept. of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences