3 Michael Stapelberg <michael@i3wm.org>
8 i3status - Generates a status line for dzen2 or xmobar
12 i3status [-c configfile] [-h] [-v]
17 Specifies an alternate configuration file path. By default, i3status looks for
18 configuration files in the following order:
21 2. ~/.config/i3status/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/i3status/config if set)
23 4. /etc/xdg/i3status/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/i3status/config if set)
27 i3status is a small program (about 1500 SLOC) for generating a status bar for
28 i3bar, dzen2, xmobar or similar programs. It is designed to be very
29 efficient by issuing a very small number of system calls, as one generally
30 wants to update such a status line every second. This ensures that even under
31 high load, your status bar is updated correctly. Also, it saves a bit of energy
32 by not hogging your CPU as much as spawning the corresponding amount of shell
37 The basic idea of i3status is that you can specify which "modules" should
38 be used (the order directive). You can then configure each module with its
39 own section. For every module, you can specify the output format. See below
40 for a complete reference.
43 -------------------------------------------------------------
45 output_format = "dzen2"
52 order += "run_watch DHCP"
53 order += "run_watch VPN"
54 order += "wireless wlan0"
55 order += "ethernet eth0"
57 order += "cpu_temperature 0"
59 order += "tztime local"
60 order += "tztime berlin"
63 format_up = "W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate) %ip"
64 format_down = "W: down"
68 # if you use %speed, i3status requires the cap_net_admin capability
69 format_up = "E: %ip (%speed)"
70 format_down = "E: down"
74 format = "%status %percentage %remaining %emptytime"
75 format_down = "No battery"
76 path = "/sys/class/power_supply/BAT%d/uevent"
81 pidfile = "/var/run/dhclient*.pid"
85 pidfile = "/var/run/vpnc/pid"
89 format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
93 format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z"
94 timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
102 format = "T: %degrees °C"
103 path = "/sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/temp1_input"
109 -------------------------------------------------------------
113 The +colors+ directive will disable all colors if you set it to +false+. You can
114 also specify the colors that will be used to display "good", "degraded" or "bad"
115 values using the +color_good+, +color_degraded+ or +color_bad+ directives,
116 respectively. Those directives are only used if color support is not disabled by
117 the +colors+ directive. The input format for color values is the canonical RGB
118 hexadecimal triplet (with no separators between the colors), prefixed by a hash
121 *Example configuration*:
122 -------------------------------------------------------------
123 color_good = "#00FF00"
124 -------------------------------------------------------------
126 Likewise, you can use the +color_separator+ directive to specify the color that
127 will be used to paint the separator bar. The separator is always output in
128 color, even when colors are disabled by the +colors+ directive.
130 The +interval+ directive specifies the time in seconds for which i3status will
131 sleep before printing the next status line.
133 Using +output_format+ you can chose which format strings i3status should
134 use in its output. Currently available are:
137 i3bar comes with i3 and provides a workspace bar which does the right thing in
138 multi-monitor situations. It also comes with tray support and can display the
139 i3status output. This output type uses JSON to pass as much meta-information to
140 i3bar as possible (like colors, which blocks can be shortened in which way,
143 Dzen is a general purpose messaging, notification and menuing program for X11.
144 It was designed to be scriptable in any language and integrate well with window
145 managers like dwm, wmii and xmonad though it will work with any windowmanger
147 xmobar is a minimalistic, text based, status bar. It was designed to work
148 with the xmonad Window Manager.
150 Does not use any color codes. Separates values by the pipe symbol. This should
151 be used with i3bar and can be used for custom scripts.
153 It's also possible to use the color_good, color_degraded, color_bad directives
154 to define specific colors per module. If one of these directives is defined
155 in a module section its value will override the value defined in the general
156 section just for this module.
160 This module gets the IPv6 address used for outgoing connections (that is, the
161 best available public IPv6 address on your computer).
163 *Example format_up*: +%ip+
165 *Example format_down* +no IPv6+
169 Gets used, free, available and total amount of bytes on the given mounted filesystem.
171 These values can also be expressed in percentages with the percentage_used,
172 percentage_free, percentage_avail and percentage_used_of_avail formats.
174 *Example order*: +disk /mnt/usbstick+
176 *Example format*: +%free (%avail)/ %total+
178 *Example format*: +%percentage_used used, %percentage_free free, %percentage_avail avail+
182 Expands the given path to a pidfile and checks if the process ID found inside
183 is valid (that is, if the process is running). You can use this to check if
184 a specific application, such as a VPN client or your DHCP client is running.
186 *Example order*: +run_watch DHCP+
188 *Example format*: +%title: %status+
192 Gets the link quality and ESSID of the given wireless network interface. You
193 can specify different format strings for the network being connected or not
196 *Example order*: +wireless wlan0+
198 *Example format*: +W: (%quality at %essid, %bitrate) %ip+
202 Gets the IP address and (if possible) the link speed of the given ethernet
203 interface. Getting the link speed requires the cap_net_admin capability. Set
204 it using +setcap cap_net_admin=ep $(which i3status)+.
206 *Example order*: +ethernet eth0+
208 *Example format*: +E: %ip (%speed)+
212 Gets the status (charging, discharging, running), percentage, remaining
213 time and power consumption (in Watts) of the given battery and when it's
214 estimated to be empty. If you want to use the last full capacity instead of the
215 design capacity (when using the design capacity, it may happen that your
216 battery is at 23% when fully charged because it’s old. In general, I want to
217 see it this way, because it tells me how worn off my battery is.), just specify
218 +last_full_capacity = true+.
220 If you want the battery percentage to be shown without decimals, add
221 +integer_battery_capacity = true+.
223 If your battery is represented in a non-standard path in /sys, be sure to
224 modify the "path" property accordingly. The first occurence of %d gets replaced
225 with the battery number, but you can just hard-code a path as well.
227 It is possible to define a low_threshold that causes the battery text to be
228 colored red. The low_threshold type can be of threshold_type "time" or
229 "percentage". So, if you configure low_threshold to 10 and threshold_type to
230 "time", and your battery lasts another 9 minutes, it will be colored red.
232 *Example order*: +battery 0+
234 *Example format*: +%status %remaining (%emptytime %consumption)+
236 *Example low_threshold*: +30+
238 *Example threshold_type*: +time+
242 Gets the temperature of the given thermal zone. It is possible to
243 define a max_threshold that will color the temperature red in case the
244 specified thermal zone is getting too hot. Defaults to 75 degrees C.
246 *Example order*: +cpu_temperature 0+
248 *Example format*: +T: %degrees °C+
250 *Example max_threshold*: +42+
254 Gets the percentual CPU usage from +/proc/stat+ (Linux) or +sysctl(3)+ (FreeBSD/OpenBSD).
256 *Example order*: +cpu_usage+
258 *Example format*: +%usage+
262 Gets the system load (number of processes waiting for CPU time in the last
263 1, 5 and 15 minutes). It is possible to define a max_threshold that will
264 color the load value red in case the load average of the last minute is
265 getting higher than the configured threshold. Defaults to 5.
267 *Example order*: +load+
269 *Example format*: +%1min %5min %15min+
271 *Example max_threshold*: 5
275 Outputs the current time in the local timezone.
276 To use a different timezone, you can set the TZ environment variable,
277 or use the +tztime+ module.
278 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
280 *Example order*: +time+
282 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S+
286 Outputs the current time in the given timezone.
287 If no timezone is given, local time will be used.
288 See +strftime(3)+ for details on the format string.
289 The system's timezone database is usually installed in +/usr/share/zoneinfo+.
290 Files below that path make for valid timezone strings, e.g. for
291 +/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin+ you can set timezone to +Europe/Berlin+
292 in the +tztime+ module.
294 *Example order*: +tztime berlin+
296 *Example format*: +%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z+
298 *Example timezone*: +Europe/Berlin+
302 Outputs the current discordian date in user-specified format. See +ddate(1)+ for
303 details on the format string.
304 *Note*: Neither *%.* nor *%X* are implemented yet.
306 *Example order*: +ddate+
308 *Example format*: +%{%a, %b %d%}, %Y%N - %H+
312 Outputs the volume of the specified mixer on the specified device. Works only
313 on Linux because it uses ALSA.
314 A simplified configuration can be used on FreeBSD and OpenBSD due to
315 the lack of ALSA, the +device+, +mixer+ and +mixder_idx+ options can be
316 ignored on these systems. On these systems the OSS API is used instead to
317 query +/dev/mixer+ directly.
319 *Example order*: +volume master+
321 *Example format*: +♪: %volume+
323 *Example configuration*:
324 -------------------------------------------------------------
326 format = "♪: %volume"
331 -------------------------------------------------------------
333 == Using i3status with dzen2
335 After installing dzen2, you can directly use it with i3status. Just ensure that
336 +output_format+ is set to +dzen2+.
338 *Example for usage of i3status with dzen2*:
339 --------------------------------------------------------------
340 i3status | dzen2 -fg white -ta r -w 1280 \
341 -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso8859-1"
342 --------------------------------------------------------------
344 == Using i3status with xmobar
346 To get xmobar to start, you might need to copy the default configuration
347 file to +~/.xmobarrc+. Also, ensure that the +output_format+ option for i3status
350 *Example for usage of i3status with xmobar*:
351 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
352 i3status | xmobar -o -t "%StdinReader%" -c "[Run StdinReader]"
353 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
355 == What about memory usage or CPU frequency?
357 While talking about two specific things, please understand this section as a
358 general explanation why your favorite information is not included in i3status.
360 Let’s talk about memory usage specifically. It is hard to measure memory in a
361 way which is accurate or meaningful. An in-depth understanding of how paging
362 and virtual memory work in your operating system is required. Furthermore, even
363 if we had a well-defined way of displaying memory usage and you would
364 understand it, I think that it’s not helpful to repeatedly monitor your memory
365 usage. One reason for that is that I have not run out of memory in the last few
366 years. Memory has become so cheap that even in my 4 year old notebook, I have
367 8 GiB of RAM. Another reason is that your operating system will do the right
368 thing anyway: Either you have not enough RAM for your workload, but you need to
369 do it anyway, then your operating system will swap. Or you don’t have enough
370 RAM and you want to restrict your workload so that it fits, then the operating
371 system will kill the process using too much RAM and you can act accordingly.
373 For CPU frequency, the situation is similar. Many people don’t understand how
374 frequency scaling works precisely. The generally recommended CPU frequency
375 governor ("ondemand") changes the CPU frequency far more often than i3status
376 could display it. The display number is therefore often incorrect and doesn’t
377 tell you anything useful either.
379 In general, i3status wants to display things which you would look at
380 occasionally anyways, like the current date/time, whether you are connected to
381 a WiFi network or not, and if you have enough disk space to fit that 4.3 GiB
384 However, if you need to look at some kind of information more than once in a
385 while (like checking repeatedly how full your RAM is), you are probably better
386 off with a script doing that, which pops up an alert when your RAM usage reaches
387 a certain threshold. After all, the point of computers is not to burden you
388 with additional boring tasks like repeatedly checking a number.
390 == External scripts/programs with i3status
392 In i3status, we don’t want to implement process management again. Therefore,
393 there is no module to run arbitrary scripts or commands. Instead, you should
394 use your shell, for example like this:
396 *Example for prepending the i3status output*:
397 --------------------------------------------------------------
399 # shell script to prepend i3status with more stuff
404 echo "mystuff | $line" || exit 1
406 --------------------------------------------------------------
408 Put that in some script, say +.bin/my_i3status.sh+ and execute that instead of i3status.
410 Note that if you want to use the JSON output format (with colors in i3bar), you
411 need to use a slightly more complex wrapper script. There are examples in the
412 contrib/ folder, see http://code.i3wm.org/i3status/tree/contrib
416 When receiving +SIGUSR1+, i3status’s nanosleep() will be interrupted and thus
417 you will force an update. You can use killall -USR1 i3status to force an update
418 after changing the system volume, for example.
422 +strftime(3)+, +date(1)+, +glob(3)+, +dzen2(1)+, +xmobar(1)+
426 Michael Stapelberg and contributors
434 Fernando Tarlá Cardoso Lemos