Usage Examples

Start with a simple widget, like date, then build your setup from there, one widget at a time. Also remember that besides creating and registering widgets you have to add them to a wibox (statusbar) in order to actually display them.

Date Widget

Update every 2 seconds (the default interval), use standard date sequences as the format string:

datewidget = wibox.widget.textbox()
vicious.register(datewidget, vicious.widgets.date, "%b %d, %R")

Memory Widget

Update every 13 seconds, append MiB to 2nd and 3rd returned values and enables caching.

memwidget = wibox.widget.textbox()
vicious.cache(vicious.widgets.mem)
vicious.register(memwidget, vicious.widgets.mem, "$1 ($2MiB/$3MiB)", 13)

HDD Temperature Widget

Update every 19 seconds, request the temperature level of /dev/sda and append °C to the returned value. Since the listening port is not provided, default one is used.

hddtempwidget = wibox.widget.textbox()
vicious.register(hddtempwidget, vicious.widgets.hddtemp, "${/dev/sda} °C", 19)

Mbox Widget

Updated every 5 seconds, provide full path to the mbox as argument:

mboxwidget = wibox.widget.textbox()
vicious.register(mboxwidget, vicious.widgets.mbox, "$1", 5,
                 "/home/user/mail/Inbox")

Battery Widget

Update every 61 seconds, request the current battery charge level and displays a progressbar, provides BAT0 as battery ID:

batwidget = wibox.widget.progressbar()

-- Create wibox with batwidget
batbox = wibox.container.margin(
    wibox.widget{ { max_value = 1, widget = batwidget,
                    border_width = 0.5, border_color = "#000000",
                    color = { type = "linear",
                              from = { 0, 0 },
                              to = { 0, 30 },
                              stops = { { 0, "#AECF96" },
                                        { 1, "#FF5656" } } } },
                  forced_height = 10, forced_width = 8,
                  direction = 'east', color = beautiful.fg_widget,
                  layout = wibox.container.rotate },
    1, 1, 3, 3)

-- Register battery widget
vicious.register(batwidget, vicious.widgets.bat, "$2", 61, "BAT0")

CPU Usage Widget

Update every 3 seconds, feed the graph with total usage percentage of all CPUs/cores:

cpuwidget = awful.widget.graph()
cpuwidget:set_width(50)
cpuwidget:set_background_color"#494B4F"
cpuwidget:set_color{ type = "linear", from = { 0, 0 }, to = { 50, 0 },
                     stops = { { 0, "#FF5656" },
                               { 0.5, "#88A175" },
                               { 1, "#AECF96" } } }
vicious.register(cpuwidget, vicious.widgets.cpu, "$1", 3)