NAME
xmobar - A configurable and extensible status bar for X11 desktops
SYNOPSIS
xmobar [options] config_file...
DESCRIPTION
xmobar is a minimalistic, text based, status bar. It was designed to
work with the xmonad Window Manager.
It was inspired by the Ion3 status bar, and supports similar features,
like dynamic color management, output templates, and extensibility
through plugins.
xmobar supports XFT and UTF-8 locales.
OPTIONS
xmobar accepts the following options.
-h, --help
Show summary of options.
-V, --version
Show version of program.
-f, --font=font name
Set the font used. XFT fonts may be specified with the following
notation: -f "xft:Sans-8:bold".
-B, --bgcolor=bg color
Sets the background color. Default is "black".
-F, --fgcolor=fg color
Sets the foreground color. Default is "grey".
-o, --top
Place xmobar at the top of the screen
-b, --bottom
Place xmobar at the bottom of the screen
-a, --alignsep=sep
Separators for left, center and right alignment. Default is
"}{". See OUTPUT TEMPLATES for more details.
-s, --sepchar=char
The character used to separate commands in the output template.
Default is "%". See OUTPUT TEMPLATES for more details.
-t, --template=template
The output template. See OUTPUT TEMPLATES for details on the
syntax.
-c, --commands=commands
The list of commands (or widgets) to be included. See COMMANDS
for more details.
CONFIGURATION
All options can be specified in a configuration file (~/.xmobarrc by
default). See /usr/share/doc/xmobar/xmobarrc-example for an example.
One difference between using a configuration file and the command-line
options, is that the configuration file allows arbitrary placement of
xmobar, using the position option:
position [Top | TopW | Bottom | BottomW | Static]
Top and Bottom are the same as -o and -b command-line options.
TopW and BottomW take 2 arguments: and alignment parameter (L
for left, C for centered and R for right) and an integer for the
percentage of the screen width xmobar will occupy.
Static { xpos = XPOS, ypos = YPOS, width = WIDTH, height =
HEIGHT } allows complete tuning of xmobar’s geometry.
OUTPUT TEMPLATES
The output template is a format string that contains the following:
1. Plain text that will appear as-is on the status bar.
2. Command identifiers, enclosed in separator characters defined by
sepchar. See below.
3. The alignment separator defined by alignsep, used to change the
alignment.
4. Special markup of the form ‘<fc=color>...</fc>’ for color-coding
the output. color is given in the standard HTML notation
#RRGGBB.
Command identifiers
xmobar will parse the template and will search for the command to be
executed in the ‘commands’ configuration option (see COMMANDS). First
an alias will be searched for and if none is found, the command name
will be tried. If a command is found, the arguments specified in the
‘commands‘ list will be used.
If no matching command or alias is found in the ‘commands’ list, xmobar
will ask the operating system to execute a program with the name found
in the template. If the execution is not successful an error will be
reported.
COMMANDS
The commands configuration option is a list of commands information and
arguments to be used by xmobar when parsing the output template. Each
member of the list consists in a command prefixed by the Run keyword.
Each command has arguments to control the way xmobar is going to
execute it.
The option consists in a list of commands separated by a comma and
enclosed by square brackets.
Example:
[Run Memory ["-t","Mem: <usedratio>%"] 10, Run Swap [] 10]
to run the Memory monitor plugin with the specified template, and the
swap monitor plugin, with default options, every second.
The only internal available command is ‘Com’ (see below Executing
External Commands). All other commands are provided by plugins. xmobar
comes with some plugins, providing a set of system monitors, a standard
input reader, an Unix named pipe reader, and a configurable date
plugin. These plugins install the following internal commands:
‘Weather’, ‘Network’, ‘Memory’, ‘Swap’, ‘Cpu’, ‘Battery’, ‘Thermal’,
‘CpuFreq’, ‘CoreTemp’, ‘Date’, ‘StdinReader’ and ‘PipeReader’.
DEFAULT PLUGINS
Below follows a list of the default plugins distributed with xmobar.
RefreshRate is always given in 1/10 seconds.
Weather StationID Args RefreshRate
Aliases to the StationID. Args is either a blank list ([]) or a
template specified as ["-t",template]. template may include the
following variables: <station>, <stationState>, <year>, <month>,
<day>, <hour>, <wind>, <visibility>, <skyCondition>, <tempC>,
<tempF>, <dewPoint>, <rh>, <pressure>. The default template is
"<station>: <tempC>C, rh <rh>% (<hour>)".
Weather requires curl(1) to retrieve weather information from
http://weather.noaaa.gov.
Network Interface Args RefreshRate
Aliases to Interface. Args is either a blank list ([]) or a
template specified as ["-t","template]. template may include the
variables <dev>, <rx> and <tx> and by default is "<dev>:
<rx>|<tx>".
Memory Args RefreshRate
Aliases to ‘memory’. Args is either a blank list ([]) or a
template specified as ["-t","template]. template may include the
variables <total>, <free>, <buffer>, <cache>, <rest>, <used>,
<usedratio>. The default template is "Mem: <usedratio>%
(<cache>M)".
Swap Args RefreshRate
Aliases to ‘swap’. Args is either a blank list ([]) or a
template specified as ["-t","template]. template may include the
variables <total>, <used>, <free> and <usedratio>. The default
template is "Swap: <usedratio>%".
Cpu Args RefreshRate
Aliases to ‘cpu’. Args is either a blank list ([]) or a template
specified as ["-t","template]. template may include the
variables <total>, <user>, <nice>, <system> and <idle>. The
default template is "Cpu: <total>%".
Battery Args RefreshRate
Aliases to ‘battery’. Args is either a blank list ([]) or a
template specified as ["-t","template]. template may include the
variable <left>. The default template is "Batt: <left>".
Battery calculates the cumulative energy left for up to three
batteries automatically.
BatteryP Args Dirs RefreshRate
Same as Battery with the addition of Dirs, which is a list of
subdirectories of /sys/class/power_supply to look in for battery
information. Example: ["BAT0","BAT1"]. Up to three directories
may be specified.
Thermal Zone Args RefreshRate
Aliases to Zone’. Args is either a blank list ([]) or a template
specified as ["-t","template]. template may include the variable
<temp>. The default template is "Thm: <Temp>C".
Thermal only works on systems with devices having thermal zones.
Check /proc/acpi/thermal_zone for possible values.
CpuFreq Args RefreshRate
Aliases to ‘cpufreq’. Args is either a blank list ([]) or a
template specified as ["-t","template]. template may include the
variables <cpu0>, <cpu1>, ..., <cpuN>. The default template is
"Freq: <cpu0>GHz". Additionally, Args may include the options
"-L", "-H", "-n", "-l" and "-h" and their respective arguments.
"-L" and "-H" set the low and high CPU frequencies used to
color-code the output. "-l", "-n" and "-h" set the colors for
low, normal and high frequency output. Example:
Run CpuFreq ["-t","Freq:<cpu0>|<cpu1>GHz", "-L","0", "-H","2", "-l","lightblue", "-n","white", "-h","red"] 50
CpuFreq requires the acpi_cpufreq kernel module to be loaded.
CoreTemp Args RefreshRate
Aliases to ‘coretemp’. Args is either a blank list ([]) or a
template specified as ["-t","template]. template may include the
variables <core0>, <core1>, ..., <coreN>. The default template
is "Temp: <core0>C". Additionally, Args may include the options
"-L", "-H", "-n", "-l" and "-h" and their respective arguments.
"-L" and "-H" set the low and high CPU temperatures used to
color-code the output. "-l", "-n" and "-h" set the colors for
low, normal and high temperature output. Example:
Run CoreTemp ["-t","Temp:<core0>|<core1>C",
"-L","40","-H","60",
"-l","lightblue",
"-n","gray90","-h","red"] 50
CoreTemp requires the coretemp kernel module to be loaded.
Date Format Alias RefreshRate
Date returns the date in the form specified by Format. Format is
a format string similar to that of strftime(3). Alias is the
name that will hold the date output at the output template.
Com ProgramName Args Alias RefreshRate
Com runs external commands and displays their output.
ProgramName is the name of the command to run, Args is an array
containing the arguments passed to ProgramName and Alias is the
alias that will hold the command output at the output profile.
If Alias is left blank, ProgramName can be used at the output
template.
StdinReader
Reads text from xmobar’s standard input and is aliased to
"StdinReader".
PipeReader Path Alias
Reads text from a fifo(7). Path contains the path to the named
pipe and Alias is the alias that will be used at the output
template. Unlike other commands, PipeReader does not have a
RefreshRate paremeter; input is read as soon as it is available
in the named pipe.
FILES
~/.xmobarrc
SEE ALSO
xmonad(1)
AUTHOR
xmobar was written by Andrea Rossato <andrea.rossato at ing.unitn.it>
This manual page was written by Apollon Oikonomopoulos
<apoikos@gmail.com>, for the Debian project (but may be used by
others), largely based on the original xmobar documentation by Andrea
Rossato.
October 6, 2008 xmobar(1)