Provided by: awesome-extra_2012061101_all 
NAME
wicked - a lua library for dynamic widgets in awesome
SYNOPSIS
None
DESCRIPTION
wicked is a library, written in lua, for easy creation and management of dynamic awesome
statusbar widgets, from the rc.lua configuration file.
USAGE
To use wicked, put require("wicked") at the top of your rc.lua, from then on, create your
widgets as normal and call wicked.register() to register them to wicked.
wicked.register(widget, widget_type, format, update_interval, data_field, padding)
widget
Use the widget created by widget for this argument.
widget_type
Enter one of the possible widget type functions or a customised one here, see the WIDGET
TYPES section.
format
Format can be either a string argument where $1,$2,$3,etc. will be replaced by their
respective values, or a function called with the arguments (widget, arguments), arguments
being a table of the values otherwise inserted into the string, if it is a function, its
return value will be used to populate the widget. Note that some widget types might not
need or use this parameter.
update_interval
The amount of seconds it waits between updating this widget, defaults to 1.
data_field
If you want to feed the data into a graph or progressbar, put the bar or plot name you
want to use in here.
padding
To prevent widgets jumping about your statusbar all the time, you can specify a padding
value here, the number given here represents the minimum amount of digits that the
widget’s output has to contain (ie specifying 2 padds values under 10 with one zero,
specifying 3 padds values under 100 with one zero and values under 10 with two zeros, etc)
If the widget type supports it, you can specify a table with different numbers, the first
number being the padding for the first value the type would return, the second number for
the second value, etc.
OTHER FUNCTIONS
The following functions are also provided by wicked.
wicked.unregister(widget, keep)
Unregister all updates associated with a widget. Keep is optional (defaults to false), and
if true, the widget will only be suspended, ready to be reactivated by the activate
function later.
wicked.suspend()
Suspend all widget updates, useful if you are running in low-power mode and want to save
battery for a while.
wicked.activate(widget)
Restarts all widgets that were suspended either from wicked.suspend(), or by calling
wicked.unregister() with keep=true. Widget is optional, if given, only that widget will be
activated, defaults to all widgets.
wicked.regregister(reg)
wicked.register() and wicked.unregister() both return a reg object, this contains
information about the widget and the updates that should be sent to it, you can pass this
reg object into regregister after unregistering it, and it will be reregistered (or
activated if it was only suspended).
wicked.enable_caching(widget_type)
Enable caching of the values returned by a custom widget_type. Note that all widget_type
functions included in wicked already have caching enabled by default.
WIDGET TYPES
Widget types consist of functions that take the "format" argument given to wicked.register
as the first argument, the "padding" argument as the second, and return a table of values
to insert in the format string, creators of custom widget types should note that the
format argument may be a function as well as a string.
For backwards compatibility purposes, if a string X is given as widget_type, it will use
'wicked.widgets.X' as the widget type.
wicked.widgets.date
The date widget type uses the output of the `os.date` command to populate the widget, if
format is given, it will be passed as the FORMAT argument to `os.date`.
wicked.widgets.cpu
The cpu widget type outputs the current cpu usage in percentages, calculated over the
duration of it’s update_interval. Use $1 inside the format string to display the total
usage percentage, $2 to show it for your first cpu core only, $3 for the second core, etc.
wicked.widgets.mem
The memory widget type outputs four things, $1 will be replaced with the current memory
usage in percentages, $2 will be replaced with the total used memory in Mb, $3 with the
total amount memory available to the system, and $4 with the amount of free memory.
wicked.widgets.swap
The swap widget type outputs the same values as the memory widget type, about the amount
of swap in use/available.
wicked.widgets.mpd
The mpd widget type outputs the song currently playing on the music player daemon, note
that the `mpc` application needs to be installed and configured in order to use this.
wicked.widgets.mocp
The mocp widget type outputs the song currently playing on the mocp server. Use $1 inside
the format string to display the current song. A maxlength can be given to the
wicked.register() function which will cut the songname in two when exeeded and displays
the first and last part. A typical functioncall looks like this:
wicked.register(mocpwidget, 'mocp', 'MOC: $1', 1, nil, 50). Here 50 is the max amount of
characters displayed of $1.
wicked.widgets.fs
The fs widget type can display size and usage information about currently mounted
filesystems, use ${mountpoint datatype} inside the format string to display that data,
e.g. ${/ avail} displays the free space on the partition mounted on /. Available datatypes
are 'used', 'size', 'usep' (Usage in %) and 'avail'.
wicked.widgets.net
The net widget type displays usage information about your networks, in the format string,
${interface type} will be replaced with with that value, possible types are: rx, tx, up,
down. You can suffix the type with _b, _kb, _mb or _gb, to display the information in
those units.
wicked.widgets.uptime
The uptime widget type displays information about how long your machine has been on (or
"up"). Use $1 for the total number of seconds up, $2 for the number of days, $3 for the
number of hours, $4 for the number of minutes and $5 for the number of seconds.
CUSTOM TYPES
You can create your own custom widgets easily, an example of a widget that returns the
output of a specific command is:
mywidget = widget({
type = 'textbox',
name = 'mywidget'
})
function run_script()
local filedescriptor = io.popen('my_nifty_script.py')
local value = filedescriptor:read()
filedescriptor:close()
return {value}
end
-- Runs 'my_nifty_script.py' every 10 seconds and puts its output into the widget
wicked.register(mywidget, run_script, "$1", 10)
As you can see, the type function returns a table of values to insert into the format
string, the first value in the table will be used in place of $1, the second in place of
$2, etc.
If you want to register the same function multiple times, it is a good idea to enable
caching so that your function is only called once in each interval. To do this call the
enable_caching function like so:
wicked.enable_caching(run_script)
FORMAT FUNCTIONS
You can use a function instead of a string as the format parameter, with this, you are
able to check the value returned by wicked and change the output accordingly. The format
function will get the widget as its first argument, and a table with the values otherwise
inserted into the format string as its second argument, and should return the text to be
used for the widget.
An example that uses a format function in order to hide the mpd widget when there is no
song playing:
mpdwidget = widget({
type = 'textbox',
name = 'mpdwidget'
})
wicked.register(mpdwidget, wicked.widgets.mpd,
function (widget, args)
if args[1]:find("volume:") == nil then
return ' <span color="white">Now Playing:</span> '..args[1]
else
return ''
end
end)
USAGE EXAMPLES
Put these snippets into your rc.lua (usually located at ~/.config/awesome/rc.lua) to see
what they do, don’t forget to add the widgets to your statusbar.
A simple 'Now Playing' widget
mpdwidget = widget({
type = 'textbox',
name = 'mpdwidget'
})
wicked.register(mpdwidget, wicked.widgets.mpd,
' <span color="white">Now Playing:</span> $1')
A memory usage monitor, with padding
memwidget = widget({
type = 'textbox',
name = 'memwidget'
})
wicked.register(memwidget, wicked.widgets.mem,
' <span color="white">Memory:</span> $1 ($2Mb/$3Mb)',
{2, 4, 4})
A filesystem usage indicator
fswidget = widget({
type = 'textbox',
name = 'fswidget'
})
wicked.register(fswidget, wicked.widgets.fs,
' <span color="white">FS:</span> ${/ used}/${/ size} (${/ usep} used)', 120)
A network interface monitor (for eth0)
netwidget = widget({
type = 'textbox',
name = 'netwidget'
})
wicked.register(netwidget, wicked.widgets.net,
' <span color="white">NET</span>: ${eth0 down} / ${eth0 up} [ ${eth0 rx} // ${eth0 tx} ]')
SEE ALSO
awesome(1) awesomerc(5)
AUTHORS
Lucas de Vries <lucas@glacicle.com[1]>
NOTES
1. lucas@glacicle.com
mailto:lucas@glacicle.com
06/12/2012 WICKED(7)