Provided by: awesome-extra_2012061101_all bug

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)