Hackage :: [Package]

Readme for xmobar-0.15

% xmobar - A Minimalistic Text Based Status Bar

About

xmobar is a minimalistic, text based, status bar. It was originally designed and implemented by Andrea Rossato to work with xmonad, but it's actually usable with any window-manager.

xmobar was inspired by the Ion3 status bar, and supports similar features, like dynamic color management, output templates, and extensibility through plugins.

This page documents xmobar 0.15 (see release notes).

This screenshot shows xmobar running under sawfish, with antialiased fonts. And this one is my desktop with xmonad and two instances of xmobar.

Bug Reports

To submit bug reports you can use the bug tracker over at Google code or send mail to our Mailing list.

Installation

Using cabal-install

Xmobar is available from Hackage, and you can install it using cabal-install:

    cabal install xmobar

See below for a list of optional compilation flags that will enable some optional plugins. For instance, to install xmobar with all the bells and whistles, use:

    cabal install xmobar --flags="all_extensions"

From source

If you don't have cabal-install installed, you can get xmobar's source code in a variety of ways:

To install simply run (if needed):

    tar xvfz xmobar-0.15
    cd xmobar-0.15

If you have cabal installed, you can now use it from within xmobar's source tree. Otherwise, run the configure script:

    runhaskell Setup.lhs configure

    # To enable UTF-8 support run:
    runhaskell Setup.lhs configure --flags="with_utf8"

    # To enable both XFT and UTF-8 support run:
    runhaskell Setup.lhs configure --flags="with_xft"

    # To enable all extensions
    runhaskell Setup.lhs configure --flags="all_extensions"

Now you can build the source:

    runhaskell Setup.lhs build
    runhaskell Setup.lhs install # possibly to be run as root

Optional features

You can configure xmobar to include some optional plugins and features, which are not compiled by default. To that end, you need to add one or more flags to either the cabal install command or the configure setup step, as shown in the examples above.

Extensions need additional libraries (listed below) that will be automatically downloaded and installed if you're using cabal install. Otherwise, you'll need to install them yourself.

with_threaded : Uses GHC's threaded runtime. Use this option if xmobar enters a high-CPU regime right after starting.

with_utf8 : UTF-8 support. Requires the utf8-string package.

with_xft : Antialiased fonts. Requires the X11-xft package. This option automatically enables UTF-8.

 To use XFT fonts you need to use the `xft:` prefix in the `font`
 configuration option. For instance:

    font = "xft:Times New Roman-10:italic"

with_mpd : Enables support for the MPD daemon. Requires the libmpd package.

with_mpris : Enables support for MPRIS v1/v2 protocol. Requires the dbus-core and text packages.

with_inotify : Support for inotify in modern linux kernels. This option is needed for the MBox and Mail plugins to work. Requires the hinotify package.

with_iwlib : Support for wireless cards. Enables the Wireless plugin. No Haskell library is required, but you will need the iwlib C library and headers in your system (e.g., install libiw-dev in Debian-based systems).

with_alsa : Support for ALSA sound cards. Enables the Volume plugin. Requires the alsa-mixer package.

with_datezone : Support for other timezones. Enables the DateZone plugin. Requires timezone-olson and timezone-series package.

all_extensions : Enables all the extensions above.

Running xmobar

You can now run xmobar with:

    xmobar /path/to/config &

or

    xmobar &

if you have the default configuration file saved as ~/.xmobarrc

Signal Handling

Since 0.14 xmobar reacts to SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2:

Configuration

Quick Start

See samples/xmobar.config for an example.

For the output template:

Other configuration options:

font : Name of the font to be used. Use the xft: prefix for XFT fonts.

bgColor : Background color.

fgColor : Default font color.

position : Top, TopW, TopSize, Bottom, BottomW, BottomSize or Static (with x, y, width and height).

: TopW and BottomW take 2 arguments: an alignment parameter (L for left, C for centered, R for Right) and an integer for the percentage width xmobar window will have in respect to the screen width.

: TopSize and BottomSize take 3 arguments: an alignment parameter, an integer for the percentage width, and an integer for the minimum pixel height that the xmobar window will have.

: For example:

: position = BottomW C 75

: to place xmobar at the bottom, centered with the 75% of the screen width.

: Or

: position = Static { xpos = 0 , ypos = 0, width = 1024, height = 15 }

: or

: position = Top

border : TopB, TopBM, BottomB, BottomBM, FullB, FullBM or NoBorder (default).

: TopB, BottomB, FullB take no arguments, and request drawing a border at the top, bottom or around xmobar's window, respectively.

: TopBM, BottomBM, FullBM take an integer argument, which is the margin, in pixels, between the border of the window and the drawn border.

borderColor : Border color.

commands : For setting the options of the programs to run (optional).

sepChar : The character to be used for indicating commands in the output template (default '%').

alignSep : a 2 character string for aligning text in the output template. The text before the first character will be align to left, the text in between the 2 characters will be centered, and the text after the second character will be align to the right.

template : The output template.

Running xmobar with i3status

xmobar can be used to display information generated by i3status, a small program that gathers system information and outputs it in formats suitable for being displayed by the dzen2 status bar, wmii's status bar or xmobar's StdinReader. See i3status manual for further details.

Command Line Options

xmobar can be either configured with a configuration file or with command line options. In the second case, the command line options will overwrite the corresponding options set in the configuration file.

Example:

xmobar -B white -a right -F blue -t '%LIPB%' -c '[Run Weather "LIPB" [] 36000]'

This is the list of command line options (the output of xmobar --help):

Usage: xmobar [OPTION...] [FILE]
Options:
  -h, -?        --help                 This help
  -V            --version              Show version information
  -f font name  --font=font name       The font name
  -B bg color   --bgcolor=bg color     The background color. Default black
  -F fg color   --fgcolor=fg color     The foreground color. Default grey
  -o            --top                  Place xmobar at the top of the screen
  -b            --bottom               Place xmobar at the bottom of the screen
  -a alignsep   --alignsep=alignsep    Separators for left, center and right text
                                       alignment. Default: '}{'
  -s char       --sepchar=char         The character used to separate commands in
                                       the output template. Default '%'
  -t template   --template=template    The output template
  -c commands   --commands=commands    The list of commands to be executed
  -C command    --add-command=command  Add to the list of commands to be executed
  -x screen     --screen=screen        On which X screen number to start

Mail bug reports and suggestions to <xmobar@projects.haskell.org>

The Output Template

The output template must contain at least one command. xmobar will parse the template and will search for the command to be executed in the commands configuration option. First an alias will be searched (plugins such as Weather or Network have default aliases, see below). After that, the command name will be tried. If a command is found, the arguments specified in the commands list will be used.

If no command 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.

The commands Configuration Option

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 parenthesis.

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, a configurable date plugin, and much more: we list all available plugins below.

To remove them see below Installing/Removing a Plugin

Other commands can be created as plugins with the Plugin infrastructure. See below Writing a Plugin

System Monitor Plugins

This is the description of the system monitor plugins that are installed by default.

Each monitor has an alias to be used in the output template. Monitors have default aliases.

Uptime Args RefreshRate

Weather StationID Args RefreshRate

Network Interface Args RefreshRate

Wireless Interface Args RefreshRate

Memory Args RefreshRate

Swap Args RefreshRate

Cpu Args RefreshRate

MultiCpu Args RefreshRate

Battery Args RefreshRate

BatteryP Dirs Args RefreshRate

TopProc Args RefreshRate

TopMem Args RefreshRate

DiskU Disks Args RefreshRate

DiskIO Disks Args RefreshRate

ThermalZone Number Args RefreshRate

Thermal Zone Args RefreshRate

CpuFreq Args RefreshRate

CoreTemp Args RefreshRate

Volume Mixer Element Args RefreshRate

MPD Args RefreshRate

Mpris1 PlayerName Args RefreshRate

Mpris2 PlayerName Args RefreshRate

Mail Args Alias

MBox Mboxes Opts Alias

XPropertyLog PropName

NamedXPropertyLog PropName Alias

Brightness Args RefreshRate

Kbd Opts

Monitor Plugins Commands Arguments

These are the arguments that can be used for internal commands in the commands configuration option:

Commands' arguments must be set as a list. E.g.:

Run Weather "EGPF" ["-t", "<station>: <tempC>C"] 36000

In this case xmobar will run the weather monitor, getting information for the weather station ID EGPF (Glasgow Airport, as a homage to GHC) every hour (36000 tenth of seconds), with a template that will output something like:

Glasgow Airport: 16.0C

Executing External Commands

In order to execute an external command you can either write the command name in the template, in this case it will be executed without arguments, or you can configure it in the "commands" configuration option list with the Com template command:

Com ProgramName Args Alias RefreshRate

E.g.:

    Run Com "uname" ["-s","-r"] "" 0

can be used in the output template as %uname% (and xmobar will call uname only once), while

    Run Com "date" ["+\"%a %b %_d %H:%M\""] "mydate" 600

can be used in the output template as %mydate%

Other Plugins

StdinReader

Date Format Alias RefreshRate

DateZone Format Locale Zone Alias RefreshRate

CommandReader "/path/to/program" Alias

PipeReader "/path/to/pipe" Alias

XMonadLog

Plugins

Writing a Plugin

Writing a plugin for xmobar should be very simple. You need to create a data type with at least one constructor.

Next you must declare this data type an instance of the Exec class, by defining the 1 needed method (alternatively start or run) and 2 optional ones (alias and rate):

    start :: e -> (String -> IO ()) -> IO ()
    run   :: e -> IO String
    rate  :: e -> Int
    alias :: e -> String

start must receive a callback to be used to display the String produced by the plugin. This method can be used for plugins that need to perform asynchronous actions. See Plugins/PipeReader.hs for an example.

run can be used for simpler plugins. If you define only run the plugin will be run every second. To overwrite this default you just need to implement rate, which must return the number of tenth of seconds between every successive runs. See Plugins/HelloWorld.hs for an example of a plugin that runs just once, and Plugins/Date.hs for one that implements rate.

Notice that Date could be implemented as:

    instance Exec Date where
        alias (Date _ a _) = a
        start (Date f _ r) = date f r

    date :: String -> Int -> (String -> IO ()) -> IO ()
    date format r callback = do go
        where go = do
                t <- toCalendarTime =<< getClockTime
                callback $ formatCalendarTime defaultTimeLocale format t
                tenthSeconds r >> go

This implementation is equivalent to the one you can read in Plugins/Date.hs.

alias is the name to be used in the output template. Default alias will be the data type constructor.

Implementing a plugin requires importing the plugin API (the Exec class definition), that is exported by Plugins.hs. So you just need to import it in your module with:

    import Plugins

After that your type constructor can be used as an argument for the Runnable type constructor Run in the commands list of the configuration options.

This requires importing your plugin into Config.hs and adding your type to the type list in the type signature of Config.runnableTypes.

For a very basic example see samples/Plugins/HelloWorld.hs or the other plugins that are distributed with xmobar.

Installing/Removing a Plugin

Installing a plugin should require 3 steps. Here we are going to install the HelloWorld plugin that comes with xmobar, assuming that you copied it to src/Plugins:

  1. import the plugin module in Config.hs, by adding:

     import Plugins.HelloWorld

  2. add the plugin data type to the list of data types in the type signature of runnableTypes in Config.hs. For instance, for the HelloWorld plugin, change runnableTypes into:

     runnableTypes :: Command :*: Monitors :*: HelloWorld :*: ()
 runnableTypes = undefined

  3. Rebuild and reinstall xmobar. Now test it with:

     xmobar Plugins/helloworld.config

As you may see in the example configuration file, the plugin can be used by adding, in the commands list:

    Run HelloWorld

and, in the output template, the alias of the plugin:

    %helloWorld%

That's it.

To remove a plugin, just remove its type from the type signature of runnableTypes and remove the imported modules.

To remove the system monitor plugin:

  1. remove, from Config.hs, the line

     import Plugins.Monitors

  2. in Config.hs change

      runnableTypes :: Command :*: Monitors :*: ()
  runnableTypes = undefined

    to

      runnableTypes :: Command :*: ()
  runnableTypes = undefined

  3. rebuild xmobar.

Authors and credits

Andrea Rossato originally designed and implemented xmobar up to version 0.11.1. Since then, it is maintained and developed by Jose Antonio Ortega Ruiz, with the help of the greater Haskell community.

In particular, xmobar incorporates patches by Ben Boeckel, Roman Cheplyaka, John Goerzen, Juraj Hercek, Tomas Janousek, Spencer Janssen, Lennart Kolmodin, Krzysztof Kosciuszkiewicz, Dmitry Kurochkin, Svein Ove, Martin Perner, Jens Petersen, Petr Rockai, Andrew Sackville-West, Alexander Solovyov, Artem Tarasov, Sergei Trofimovich, Thomas Tuegel, Jan Vornberger, Daniel Wagner and Norbert Zeh.

Thanks

Andrea Rossato:

Thanks to Robert Manea and Spencer Janssen for their help in understanding how X works. They gave me suggestions on how to solve many problems with xmobar.

Thanks to Claus Reinke for make me understand existential types (or at least for letting me think I grasp existential types...;-).

jao:

Thanks to Andrea for creating xmobar in the first place, and for giving me the chance to contribute.

Useful links

License

This software is released under a BSD-style license. See LICENSE for more details.

Copyright © 2007-2010 Andrea Rossato

Copyright © 2010-2012 Jose Antonio Ortega Ruiz