i3blocks is a highly flexible status line for the i3 window manager. It handles clicks, signals and language-agnostic user scripts.

The content of each block (e.g. time, battery status, network state, ...) is the output of a command provided by the user. Blocks are updated on click, at a given interval of time or on a given signal, also specified by the user.

It aims to respect the i3bar protocol, providing customization such as text alignment, urgency, color, and more.

Here is an example of status line, showing the time updated every 5 seconds, the volume updated only when i3blocks receives a SIGUSR1, and click events.

[volume]
command=echo -n 'Volume: '; amixer get Master | grep -E -o '[0-9][0-9]?%'
signal=10
# use 'killall -USR1 i3blocks' after changing the volume

[time]
command=date '+%D %T'
interval=5

[clickme]
command=echo button=$BLOCK_BUTTON x=$BLOCK_X y=$BLOCK_Y
min_width=button=1 x=1366 y=768
align=left

You can use your own scripts, or the ones provided with i3blocks. Feel free to contribute and improve them!

The default config will look like this:

The scripts provided by default may use external tools:

• mpstat (often provided by the sysstat package) used by cpu_usage.
• acpi (often provided by a package of the same name) used by battery.
• playerctl (available here) used by mediaplayer.

For more information about how it works, please refer to the manpage.

You can also take a look at the i3bar protocol to see what possibilities it offers you.

Take a look at the wiki for examples of blocks and screenshots. If you want to share your ideas and status line, feel free to edit it!

• Download i3blocks and run make install within the source directory

  • Note that there's a AUR package for Archlinux.
  • Note that there's a ebuild for Gentoo users.

• set your status_command in a bar block of your ~/.i3/config file:

  bar {
    status_command i3blocks
  }
  

• For customization, copy the default i3blocks.conf into ~/.i3blocks.conf

• Restart i3 (e.g. i3-msg restart)

i3blocks is Copyright (C) 2014 Vivien Didelot
See the file COPYING for information of licensing and distribution.