Waybars

Table of Contents

CPU History:
dunst:
NVIDIA GPU (with nvidia-smi)
Generic MediaPlayer:
Spotify:
mpd:
cmus:
MPRIS controller
Pipewire:
Pacman
XBPS
DeaDBeeF
VPN indicator
Github notifications
Weather
Sway Scratchpad Indicator:
Sway output scaling toggle
Display current Pulseaudio sink and cycle between sinks on click
Calendar with CalDAV integration
Measure power draw (of PC for example) on Tuya Smart power plug over Zigbee2MQTT
Simple VRR/Adaptive sync toggle for sway

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This page contains brief examples, with code provided here directly, of custom modules:

CPU History:

Shows a CPU graph like this:

Full usage example in my dotfiles: https://github.com/cargodog/dot-config/tree/master/waybar ~/.config/waybar/config

"custom/cpuhistory": {
  "exec": "~/.config/waybar/scripts/cpu_history.py -d 60",
  "format": "<span color='#FFA500'>  </span>{}",
  "interval": 1,
  "return-type": "json",
  "on-click": "~/.config/waybar/scripts/cpu_history.py toggle"
},

Requires python 3 and the python psutil package
Set -d to set the number of bars in the graph
- For example, setting "interval": 1 and -d 60 means the graph will show the last 60 seconds of CPU usage
on-click action toggles between graph view and single measurement

~/.config/waybar/config/scripts/cpu_history.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""CPU Usage Graph Monitor - Displays a unicode graph of CPU usage history using Braille characters."""
import json
import os
import sys
import psutil
import argparse
from pathlib import Path

# Configuration
CACHE_DIR = Path(os.environ.get('XDG_CACHE_HOME', Path.home() / '.cache'))
HISTORY_FILE = CACHE_DIR / 'cpu_usage_history.json'
DEFAULT_HISTORY_DEPTH = 40

# Braille patterns for vertical bar graphs
BRAILLE_PATTERNS = {
    (0, 0): '⠀', (1, 0): '⡀', (2, 0): '⡄', (3, 0): '⡆', (4, 0): '⡇',
    (0, 1): '⢀', (1, 1): '⣀', (2, 1): '⣄', (3, 1): '⣆', (4, 1): '⣇',
    (0, 2): '⢠', (1, 2): '⣠', (2, 2): '⣤', (3, 2): '⣦', (4, 2): '⣧',
    (0, 3): '⢰', (1, 3): '⣰', (2, 3): '⣴', (3, 3): '⣶', (4, 3): '⣷',
    (0, 4): '⢸', (1, 4): '⣸', (2, 4): '⣼', (3, 4): '⣾', (4, 4): '⣿',
}

def get_braille_char(left_val, right_val):
    """Convert two percentage values (0-100) to a single Braille character."""
    # Convert percentages to levels (1-4), minimum 1 to always show at least one dot
    left_level = max(1, min(int(left_val * 4 / 100), 4))
    right_level = max(1, min(int(right_val * 4 / 100), 4))
    return BRAILLE_PATTERNS.get((left_level, right_level), '⣀')

def load_data():
    """Load data from cache file."""
    try:
        with open(HISTORY_FILE, 'r') as f:
            data = json.load(f)
            # Handle legacy format
            if isinstance(data, list):
                return {"history": data, "show_graph": True}
            return data
    except (FileNotFoundError, json.JSONDecodeError):
        return {"history": [], "show_graph": True}

def save_data(data):
    """Save data to cache file."""
    CACHE_DIR.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
    with open(HISTORY_FILE, 'w') as f:
        json.dump(data, f)

def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='CPU Usage Graph Monitor with Braille display')
    parser.add_argument('command', nargs='?', help='Command: toggle')
    parser.add_argument('-d', '--depth', type=int, default=DEFAULT_HISTORY_DEPTH,
                        help=f'History depth (default: {DEFAULT_HISTORY_DEPTH})')
    args = parser.parse_args()
    
    # Ensure even depth for Braille pairs
    history_depth = args.depth + (args.depth % 2)
    
    data = load_data()
    
    # Handle toggle command
    if args.command == "toggle":
        data["show_graph"] = not data.get("show_graph", True)
        save_data(data)
        return
    
    # Get CPU usage
    per_core = psutil.cpu_percent(interval=0.1, percpu=True)
    current_usage = sum(per_core) / len(per_core)
    
    # Update history
    history = data["history"]
    history.append(current_usage)
    
    # Keep only needed history
    if len(history) > history_depth:
        history = history[-history_depth:]
    
    # Generate output
    if data.get("show_graph", True):
        # Pad with zeros if needed
        padded = [0.0] * (history_depth - len(history)) + history
        
        # Build graph
        graph = ''.join(
            get_braille_char(
                padded[i],
                padded[i + 1] if i + 1 < history_depth else 0.0
            )
            for i in range(0, history_depth, 2)
        )
        text = f"[{graph}]"
    else:
        text = f"{current_usage:.1f}%"
    
    # Save and output
    data["history"] = history
    save_data(data)
    
    # Build color-coded tooltip
    tooltip_lines = []
    for i, usage in enumerate(per_core):
        if usage >= 80:
            color = "#ff6b6b"  # Red for high load
        elif usage >= 60:
            color = "#feca57"  # Yellow for medium-high load
        elif usage >= 40:
            color = "#48dbfb"  # Cyan for medium load
        else:
            color = "#1dd1a1"  # Green for low load
        
        tooltip_lines.append(f'<span color="{color}">Core {i}: {usage:5.1f}%</span>')
    
    # Output for waybar
    print(json.dumps({
        "text": text,
        "tooltip": '\n'.join(tooltip_lines),
        "class": "cpu-history"
    }))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

dunst:

~/.config/waybar/config

"custom/dunst": {
    "exec": "~/.config/waybar/scripts/dunst.sh",
    "on-click": "dunstctl set-paused toggle",
    "restart-interval": 1,
}

~/.config/waybar/scripts/dunst.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

COUNT=$(dunstctl count waiting)
ENABLED=
DISABLED=
if [ $COUNT != 0 ]; then DISABLED=" $COUNT"; fi
if dunstctl is-paused | grep -q "false" ; then echo $ENABLED; else echo $DISABLED; fi

Or if you want a version that reacts to dbus events instead:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

readonly ENABLED=' '
readonly DISABLED=' '
dbus-monitor path='/org/freedesktop/Notifications',interface='org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties',member='PropertiesChanged' --profile |
  while read -r _; do
    PAUSED="$(dunstctl is-paused)"
    if [ "$PAUSED" == 'false' ]; then
      CLASS="enabled"
      TEXT="$ENABLED"
    else
      CLASS="disabled"
      TEXT="$DISABLED"
      COUNT="$(dunstctl count waiting)"
      if [ "$COUNT" != '0' ]; then
        TEXT="$DISABLED ($COUNT)"
      fi
    fi
    printf '{"text": "%s", "class": "%s"}\n' "$TEXT" "$CLASS"
  done

NVIDIA GPU (with nvidia-smi)

"custom/nvidia": {
    "exec": "nvidia-smi --query-gpu=utilization.gpu,temperature.gpu --format=csv,nounits,noheader | sed 's/\\([0-9]\\+\\), \\([0-9]\\+\\)/\\1% 🌡️\\2°C/g'",
    "format": "{} 🖥️",
    "interval": 2
}

Generic MediaPlayer:

Supports vlc, mpv, RhythmBox, web browsers, cmus, mpd, spotify and others.

"custom/media": {
    "format": "{icon} {}",
    "escape": true,
    "return-type": "json",
    "max-length": 40,
    "on-click": "playerctl play-pause",
    "on-click-right": "playerctl stop",
    "smooth-scrolling-threshold": 10, // This value was tested using a trackpad, it should be lowered if using a mouse.
    "on-scroll-up": "playerctl next",
    "on-scroll-down": "playerctl previous",
    "exec": "$HOME/.config/waybar/mediaplayer.py 2> /dev/null", // Script in resources/custom_modules folder
}

Spotify:

"custom/spotify": {
    "format": "{icon} {}",
    "escape": true,
    "return-type": "json",
    "max-length": 40,
    "interval": 30, // Remove this if your script is endless and write in loop
    "on-click": "playerctl -p spotify play-pause",
    "on-click-right": "killall spotify",
    "smooth-scrolling-threshold": 10, // This value was tested using a trackpad, it should be lowered if using a mouse.
    "on-scroll-up" : "playerctl -p spotify next",
    "on-scroll-down" : "playerctl -p spotify previous",
    "exec": "$HOME/.config/waybar/mediaplayer.py 2> /dev/null", // Script in resources/custom_modules folder
    "exec-if": "pgrep spotify"
}

mpd:

"custom/mpd": {
    "format": "♪ {}",
    //"max-length": 15,
    "interval": 10, 
    "exec": "mpc current", 
    "exec-if": "pgrep mpd",
    "on-click": "mpc toggle",
    "on-click-right": "sonata"
}

cmus:

"custom/cmus": {
    "format": "♪ {}",
    //"max-length": 15,
    "interval": 10,
    "exec": "cmus-remote -C \"format_print '%a - %t'\"", // artist - title
    "exec-if": "pgrep cmus",
    "on-click": "cmus-remote -u",                        //toggle pause
    "escape": true                                       //handle markup entities
}

MPRIS controller

"custom/media": {
    "format": "{icon}{}",
    "return-type": "json",
    "format-icons": {
        "Playing": " ",
        "Paused": " ",
    },
    "max-length":70,
    "exec": "playerctl -a metadata --format '{\"text\": \"{{playerName}}: {{artist}} - {{markup_escape(title)}}\", \"tooltip\": \"{{playerName}} : {{markup_escape(title)}}\", \"alt\": \"{{status}}\", \"class\": \"{{status}}\"}' -F",
    "on-click": "playerctl play-pause",
}

Pipewire:

Uses Wireplumber

~/.config/waybar/config

"custom/pipewire": {
    "tooltip": false,
    "max-length": 6,
    "exec": "$HOME/.config/waybar/scripts/pipewire.sh",
    "on-click": "pavucontrol",
    "on-click-right": "qpwgraph"
}

~/.config/waybar/scripts/pipewire.sh


#!/bin/bash

set -e

# https://blog.dhampir.no/content/sleeping-without-a-subprocess-in-bash-and-how-to-sleep-forever
snore() {
    local IFS
    [[ -n "${_snore_fd:-}" ]] || exec {_snore_fd}<> <(:)
    read -r ${1:+-t "$1"} -u $_snore_fd || :
}

DELAY=0.2

while snore $DELAY; do
    WP_OUTPUT=$(wpctl get-volume @DEFAULT_AUDIO_SINK@)

    if [[ $WP_OUTPUT =~ ^Volume:[[:blank:]]([0-9]+)\.([0-9]{2})([[:blank:]].MUTED.)?$ ]]; then
        if [[ -n ${BASH_REMATCH[3]} ]]; then
            printf "MUTE\n"
        else
            VOLUME=$((10#${BASH_REMATCH[1]}${BASH_REMATCH[2]}))
            ICON=(
                ""
                ""
                ""
            )

            if [[ $VOLUME -gt 50 ]]; then
                printf "%s" "${ICON[0]} "
            elif [[ $VOLUME -gt 25 ]]; then
                printf "%s" "${ICON[1]} "
            elif [[ $VOLUME -ge 0 ]]; then
                printf "%s" "${ICON[2]} "
            fi

            printf "$VOLUME%%\n"
        fi
    fi
done

exit 0

Pacman

"custom/pacman": {
    "format": "{}  ",
    "interval": "once",
    "exec": "pacman_packages",
    "on-click": "update-system",
    "signal": 8
}
//alternate
"custom/pacman": {
    "format": "{}  ",
    "interval": 3600,                     // every hour
    "exec": "checkupdates | wc -l",       // # of updates
    "exec-if": "exit 0",                  // always run; consider advanced run conditions
    "on-click": "termite -e 'sudo pacman -Syu'; pkill -SIGRTMIN+8 waybar", // update system
    "signal": 8
}

You can use the signal and update the number of available packages with pkill -RTMIN+8 waybar.

XBPS

Show available updates for void linux.

~/.config/waybar/config

  "custom/xbps": {
    "format": "{}  ",
    "return-type": "json",
    "tooltip": true,
    "interval": "3600",
    "exec": "~/.config/waybar/custom/xbps-updates.sh"
  },

~/.config/waybar/custom/xbps-updates.sh

#!/bin/bash

pkgs=$(xbps-install -nuM | awk '{print $1}')
pkg_count=$(echo $pkgs | wc -w)
pkg_list=$(echo $pkgs | sed 's/ /\\r/g')

echo "{\"text\":\"$pkg_count\", \"tooltip\":\"$pkg_list\"}"

DeaDBeeF

"custom/deadbeef": {
    "format": " {}",
    "max-length": 50,    
    "interval": 10,
    "exec": "deadbeef --nowplaying-tf '{\"text\": \"%title%\", \"tooltip\":\"%artist% - %title%\",\"class\":\"$if(%isplaying%,playing,not-playing)\"}'",
    "return-type": "json",
    "exec-if": "pgrep deadbeef",
    "on-click": "deadbeef --toggle-pause"
}

VPN indicator

(the indicator is quite silly and only checks whether a tunnel exists or not)

"custom/vpn": {
    "format": "VPN ",
    "exec": "echo '{\"class\": \"connected\"}'",
    "exec-if": "test -d /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/tun0",
    "return-type": "json",
    "interval": 5
}

Github notifications

"custom/github": {
    "format": "{} ",
    "return-type": "json",
    "interval": 60,
    "exec": "$HOME/.config/waybar/github.sh",
    "on-click": "xdg-open https://github.com/notifications"
}

Make sure jq is installed.
Create notifications.token, a personal access token, with notifications in scope at https://github.com/settings/tokens.
Create github.sh with the contents below, replacing username with your own.

#!/bin/bash

token=`cat ${HOME}/.config/github/notifications.token`
count=`curl -u username:${token} https://api.github.com/notifications | jq '. | length'`

if [[ "$count" != "0" ]]; then
    echo '{"text":'$count',"tooltip":"$tooltip","class":"$class"}'
fi

Weather

Replace Berlin+Germany with your own city.

~/.config/waybar/config

"custom/weather": {
    "exec": "${HOME}/.config/waybar/scripts/get_weather.sh Berlin+Germany",
    "return-type": "json",
    "format": "{}",
    "tooltip": true,
    "interval": 3600
}

~/.config/waybar/scripts/get_weather.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
for i in {1..5}
do
    text=$(curl -s "https://wttr.in/$1?format=1")
    if [[ $? == 0 ]]
    then
        text=$(echo "$text" | sed -E "s/\s+/ /g")
        tooltip=$(curl -s "https://wttr.in/$1?format=4")
        if [[ $? == 0 ]]
        then
            tooltip=$(echo "$tooltip" | sed -E "s/\s+/ /g")
            echo "{\"text\":\"$text\", \"tooltip\":\"$tooltip\"}"
            exit
        fi
    fi
    sleep 2
done
echo "{\"text\":\"error\", \"tooltip\":\"error\"}"

Sway Scratchpad Indicator:

Requires jq

Get all the scratchpad nodes. Shows the count as module text and the window class/app_id, id, and name on hover, and doesn't display anything if there are no nodes in the scratchpad.

"custom/scratchpad-indicator": {
    "interval": 3,
    "return-type": "json",
    "exec": "swaymsg -t get_tree | jq --unbuffered --compact-output '(recurse(.nodes[]) | select(.name == \"__i3_scratch\") | .focus) as $scratch_ids | [..  | (.nodes? + .floating_nodes?) // empty | .[] | select(.id |IN($scratch_ids[]))] as $scratch_nodes | if ($scratch_nodes|length) > 0 then { text: \"\\($scratch_nodes | length)\", tooltip: $scratch_nodes | map(\"\\(.app_id // .window_properties.class) (\\(.id)): \\(.name)\") | join(\"\\n\") } else empty end'",
    "format": "{} 🗗",
    "on-click": "exec swaymsg 'scratchpad show'",
    "on-click-right": "exec swaymsg 'move scratchpad'"
}

A simpler version, that only shows the number of windows when there is at least one (hidden when there are 0). Shows no additional info on hover.

"custom/scratchpad_indicator": {
   "interval": 3,
   "exec": "swaymsg -t get_tree | jq 'recurse(.nodes[]) | first(select(.name==\"__i3_scratch\")) | .floating_nodes | length | select(. >= 1)'",
   "format": "{} ",
   "on-click": "swaymsg 'scratchpad show'",
   "on-click-right": "swaymsg 'move scratchpad'"
}

Sway output scaling toggle

"custom/output-scale": {
    "format": "{icon} {}",
    "return-type": "json",
    "format-icons": { // These are FontAwesome 4 icons. Update them as needed.
        "scale": " \uf0b2",
        "noscale": "\uf066"
    },
    "exec-on-event": true,
    "interval": "once",
    "exec": "( swaymsg -r -t get_outputs | jq '.[0].scale' | xargs test 1 == ) && echo '{\"alt\": \"noscale\"}' || echo '{\"alt\":\"scale\"}'",
    "exec-if": "sleep 0.1", // Give enough time for `sway output` command changes to propagate so we can read them in the next `exec`
    "on-click": "( swaymsg -r -t get_outputs | jq '.[0].scale' | xargs test 1 = ) && swaymsg output DP-1 scale 1.4 || swaymsg output DP-1 scale 1"
}

Change the desired scaling parameter in on-click configuration.
Update the correct output from DP-1 to the one you have.
Change the index [0] in exec and on-click if you have more than one output, and need to adjust non-zero output.

Display current Pulseaudio sink and cycle between sinks on click

"custom/pulseaudio-cycle": {
    "return-type": "json",
    "exec-on-event": true,
    "interval": "5s",
    "exec" "pactl --format=json list sinks | jq -cM --unbuffered \"map(select(.name == \\\"$(pactl get-default-sink)\\\"))[0].properties | [.\\\"media.name\\\",.\\\"alsa.name\\\",.\\\"node.nick\\\",.\\\"alsa.long_card_name\\\"] | map(select(length>0))[0] | {text:.}\"",
    "exec-if": "sleep 0.1", // Give enough time for `pactl get-default-sink` to update
    "on-click": "pactl --format=json list sinks short | jq -cM --unbuffered \"[.[].name] | .[((index(\\\"$(pactl get-default-sink)\\\")+1)%length)]\" | xargs pactl set-default-sink"
}

Calendar with CalDAV integration

Requires plann

#!/usr/bin/env bash

PLANN=$HOME/.pyenv/versions/plann/bin/plann

printf '{"text":"'
printf "󰸘 $(date +'%m-%d (%a)') "
printf "󰅐 $(date +'%H:%M')"
printf '",'
printf '"tooltip":"%s"' "$($PLANN --caldav-url CALDAV_URL --caldav-username CALDAV_USER --caldav-password CALDAV_PASSWORD --calendar-name 'CALDAV_CALENDAR_NAME' agenda | head --lines -1 | sed 's/$/\\n/' | tr -d '\n' | head --bytes -2)"
printf '}'

Remove --calendar-name option to displays the last events across all calendars.

Measure power draw (of PC for example) on Tuya Smart power plug over Zigbee2MQTT

Requires mosquitto and jq

"custom/tuya": {
    "format": "{}w",
    "exec": "mosquitto_sub -h YOUR_HOST -t 'zigbee2mqtt/YOUR_SMART_DEV' | jq '.power' --unbuffered",
    "exec-if": "exit 0",
    "restart-interval": 60,
    "escape": true,
}

Simple VRR/Adaptive sync toggle for sway

"custom/adaptive-sync" : {
  "format": "  VRR{} ",
  "exec-on-event": true,
  "interval": "once",
  "exec": "swaymsg -r -t get_outputs | jq '.[0].adaptive_sync_status'",
  "on-click": "swaymsg output DP-2 adaptive_sync on",
  "on-click-right": "swaymsg output DP-2 adaptive_sync off"
}

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