What is it? pySignature is a program that generates random fortune signatures.
In *nix, it's quite simple to do a program like this (in only 3 lines) using the fortune program. However, in Windows, fortune isn't available (except by Cygwin). So I decided to create mine in Python. pySignature is distributed under the GNU Public License (GPL), version 2.
Read the README file that comes with pySignature for more information.
What do I need to use it? These are the specifications if you download the source code:
- The Python interpreter from the Python Home Page. I developed it with version 2.3, but it could work with older (and newer) versions of Python.
- If you are using Windows, you'll also need the Python Win32 extensions at Mark Hammond's Home Page, or at the Python Home Page, mentioned earlier.
- If you don't like the Tkinter interface, then you'll need to download wxPython to use the wx version.
- An email client that accepts external signatures files.
- Cookie fortune files.
- A simple text signature file.
- A program capable of unzipping files (WinZip and WinRAR are good apps for Windows).
About Cookie fortune files: I don't include fortune files with pySignature because it might be a copyright violation. Searching at Freshmeat.net, at the OpenBSD web site and at Google can find some fortune files. Searching with your favorite search engine also can give other options.
About the signature files: The signature file MUST be a text file. If you are using Windows, please use Notepad to create this file. If you want to use MS Word, save it as a text file. For an example, check my plain signature file.
How do I configure pySignature? If you download the installer, it will prompt you the necessary information, otherwise you will need to create a configuration file and save it as config.xml in the same directory where pySignature is (you can name it and/or put it else where, but you'll have to pass the path when you call pySignature). The file should look like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<options>
<email>"/abs/path/to/email/program"</email>
<fortunes>/place/where/fortunes/are</fortunes>
<plain>/place/where/plain/sig/is</plain>
<output>/place/to/put/new/sig</output>
</options>
All tags above are required and cannot be repeated. The only one that can be repeated is the fortunes tag.
Substitute above all the information about your configuration. There are other optional tags that can be used with the ones above:
- parameters: Any additional parameters that the program must receive to work properly (defaults to empty).
- title: Title for the window (defaults to pySignature).
- run: Set to no to stop the program from running the email application. (defaults to yes).
- base: Uses another configuration file as a base for the current one. Anything undefined in the current one will take the default values of the base file. WARNING: It is possible to nest more than two configuration files. However, I didn't design pySignature to handle more than one base file.
BUG ALERT: I haven't figured out the NSIS installer completely, so the plain signature is just only allows one line. You can edit the file that it creates, plain.txt and it can have more than one line. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Requests? Questions? Comments? Email them to: andresr@despammed.com. If you want, send me a postcard from your country. Please email me for the postal address.
Download pySignature.exe (Installation program, compiled for Windows NT/2000/XP). 2.4 MB
Download pySignature.zip (Source code only) 12.7 KB