Command

Command is an external program that provides data to oatbar.

# Runs periodically
[[command]]
name="disk_free"
command="df -h / | tail -1 | awk '{print $5}'"
interval=60  # Default is 10.

# Runs once
[[command]]
name="uname"
command="uname -a"
once=true  # Default is false.

# Streams continiously
[[command]]
name="desktop"
command="oatbar-desktop"
# format="i3bar"

oatbar will run each command as sh -c "command" to support basic shell substitutions.

Formats

Formats are usually auto-detected and there is no need to set format explicitly.

plain

Plain text format is just text printed to stdout.

name="hello"
command="echo Hello world"

This will set ${hello:value} variable to be used by blocks. If the command outputs multiple lines, each print will set this variable to a new value. If the command runs indefinitely, the pauses between prints can be used to only update the variable when necessary. When the command is complete, it will be restarted after interval seconds (the default is 10).

If line_names are set, then the output is expected in groups of multiple lines, each will set it's own variable, like ${hello:first_name} and ${hello:last_name} in the following example:

name="hello"
line_names=["first_name", "last_name"]

Many polybar scripts can be used via the plain format, as soon as they don't use polybar specific formatting.

i3blocks raw format plugins can be consumed too by means of the line_names set to standard names for i3blocks.

i3bar

i3bar format is the richest supported format. It supports multiple streams of data across multiple "instances" of these streams. In i3wm this format fully controls the display of i3bar, where for oatbar it is a yet another data source that needs to be explicitly connected to properties of the blocks. For example instead of coloring the block, you can choose to color the entire bar. Or you can use color red coming from an i3bar plugin as a signal to show a hidden block.

Plugins that oatbar ships with use this format.

[[command]]
name="desktop"
command="oatbar-desktop"

The command output-desktop outputs:

{"version":1}
[
[{"full_text":"workspace: 1","name":"workspace","active":0,"value":"1","variants":"1,2,3"},
{"full_text":"window: Alacritty","name":"window_title","value":"Alacritty"}],
...

This command is named desktop in the config.

Each entry is groups variables under a different name that represents a purpose of the data stream, in this case: workspace and window_title. Multiple entries with the same name, but different instance field to represent further breakdown (e.g. names of network interfaces from a network plugin).

The output from above will set the following variables, run oatbar and see them in real-time

$ oatctl var ls
desktop:workspace.active=0
desktop:workspace.value=1
desktop:workspace.variants=1,2,3
desktop:workspace.full_text=workspace: 1
desktop:window_title.value=Alacritty
desktop:window_title.full_text=window: Alacritty

If instance is present in the entry, then the name of the variable is command_name:name.instance.variable.