Conky: Bare Bones example doesn't work?

[four43]

Issue

After basically copy/pasting the example config from here: https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/wiki/Using-Lua-scripts-(Part-01)%3A-How-does-a-lua-script-work

Conky does't start, requiring a text section. There doesn't seem to be any mention of a text section when drawing with Lua? This is all very confusing. These docs are sparse at best, and I'd like to help.

Information

Conky Version Info

$ conky --version
conky 1.11.5_pre compiled Tue 17 Dec 2019 09:57:09 PM CST for Linux 5.3.0-24-generic x86_64

Compiled in features:

System config file: /etc/conky/conky.conf
Package library path: /usr/local/lib/conky


 General:
  * math
  * hddtemp
  * portmon
  * IPv6
  * Curl
  * ICal
  * Weather (METAR)
  * support for IBM/Lenovo notebooks
  * builtin default configuration
  * old configuration syntax
  * Imlib2
  * OSS mixer support
  * apcupsd
  * iostats
  * ncurses
  * Internationalization support
 X11:
  * Xdamage extension
  * Xinerama extension (virtual display)
  * Xshape extension (click through)
  * XDBE (double buffer extension)
  * Xft
  * ARGB visual
  * Own window

 Music detection:
  * CMUS
  * MPD
  * MOC

 Default values:
  * Netdevice: eno1
  * Local configfile: $HOME/.conkyrc
  * Localedir: /usr/local/share/locale
  * Maximum netdevices: 256
  * Maximum text size: 16384
  * Size text buffer: 256

Config:

conky.config = {
    lua_load = "./wiki-demo.lua",
    lua_draw_hook_post = "main"
};

This could just be me playing devils advocate, but I'm having a really hard time getting started with conky. Most of the online examples are for the old version, and the docs in the wiki seem incredibly sparse and don't really give you a firm starting point. Can we expand that first section into a working example?

Thanks for your help.

[lasers]

the docs in the wiki seem incredibly sparse and don't really give you a firm starting point. Can we expand that first section into a working example?

Conky does't start, requiring a text section. There doesn't seem to be any mention of a text section when drawing with Lua? This is all very confusing. These docs are sparse at best, and I'd like to help.

Anybody can edit the docs. Feel free to contribute more working tidbits. :-)

There doesn't seem to be any mention of a text section when drawing with Lua?

I'm not sure about this, but users familiar with conky know that there should always be at least a config section and a text section in the config.

conky.config = {};
conky.text = [[]];

Most of the online examples are for the old version.

I agree. If you search lua here (in issues or on Internet), you can find some decent configs to start working off on. Maybe #656.

Also... If I remember this correctly, the config itself is a lua config too. I don't really know anything about this. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

[four43]

Awesome good starting points. I'm gonna try and hack through some more and hopefully get a newb's perspective on this (I'm new to Lua too) and post it back here/docs. Thanks for the starting points too. I'll try and incorporate those in.