istat: an i3 (or sway) status_commandI used to use i3blocks for i3's status_command, but I found that having all
my configuration in separate scripts was getting a little cumbersome.
That, and also I could never find a good block for volume control that wasn't janky or slow.
So, I decided to write my own status_command generator, and what better language to write it in than Rust!
Each bar item is configurable, see the sample config for options.
Here's an image of a bar in i3:
And another one which powerline mode set:
This table contains screenshots of some bar items:
| item | description | screenshots |
| ----------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| battery | Percentage, charging, etc. Supports multiple batteries. | 
|
| cpu | Usage expressed as a percentage | 
|
| disk | Usage, shows free disk space. Supports multiple mount points. | 
|
| dunst | Displays "do not disturb" status (if it's paused or not) | 
|
| kbd | Displays CapsLock/Numlock/etc states | 
|
| krb | Checks if a valid kerberos token exists (like klist -s) | 
|
| mem | Display free memory as bytes or as a percentage | 
|
| net_usage | Upload and download statistics | 
|
| nic | Network interface status - connection state and ip addresses | 
|
| pulse | Input/output volume status, full control and current speaker type (jack, bt, etc) | 
|
| script | Run arbitrary scripts and show their output | 
|
| sensors | Temperature sensors | 
|
| time | Displays the current date and/or time | 
|
With Rust (via cargo):
```sh cargo install istat
sample_config.toml file for configuration options```
Via the AUR (Arch Linux):
sh
paru -S istat
First, create a config file for istat. View the sample config for what's available.
This file should be placed in:
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/istat/<here>, or$HOME/.config/istat/<here>Even though the sample configuration file is a TOML file, YAML and JSON are also supported.
Then, update your i3/sway config to use istat as the status_command:
bar {
status_command istat
# ... other config
}
istatistat offers multiple ways of interacting with it:
Consider the following bar item which outputs the state of the CapsLock and NumLock keys:
toml
type = "kbd"
show = ["caps_lock", "num_lock"]
interval = "30s"
It refreshes every 30 seconds, or every time the bar item receives a click event. That's alright, but we can do better with signals.
Adding signal = 8 to the config, and removing interval we get:
toml
type = "kbd"
show = ["caps_lock", "num_lock"]
signal = 8
Now, whenever istat receives the SIGRTMIN+8 signal, the bar item will be refreshed.
Pair this with the following config in i3/sway, and you'll have a bar item that reflects your keys all the time:
bindsym --release Caps_Lock exec --no-startup-id pkill -RTMIN+8 istat
bindsym --release Num_Lock exec --no-startup-id pkill -RTMIN+8 istat
Linux offers many realtime signals, to see which your machine supports the istat-signals command is provided:
bash
$ istat-signals
{"max":30,"min":0,"sigrtmax":64,"sigrtmin":34}
The same signal can be configured for multiple bar items, so you many can be refreshed with the same signal!
The command istat-ipc is provided to interface with istat. It supports:
click events to each bar itempulse) expose an advanced API which can be accessed with these eventsRefresh all bar items at once:
bash
istat-ipc refresh-all
Send a click event to a bar item - without actually clicking it!:
```bash
istat-ipc click disk left ```
Control PulseAudio/Pipewire via custom IPC events:
```bash
istat-ipc custom pulse
istat-ipc custom pulse volume-down sink
istat-ipc custom pulse volume-up source
istat-ipc custom pulse mute-toggle sink ```
See the justfile!
Also give IDEAS.md a read too.