🎨 Polybar Configuration Guide

Polybar is a highly customizable status bar that provides a sleek and elegant way to display system information such as date, CPU, memory, and more. It's modular, lightweight, and visually beautiful.

This dotfiles setup uses a profile-based system that allows different rice themes to use different polybar configurations seamlessly, with intelligent color adaptation powered by the smart colors system.

[!TIP] Everything in this setup is fully customizable. Whether it's modules, colors, font, spacing, or interaction, you have total control. All configuration files are versioned in your dotfiles using chezmoi.

Key Features

• 🎨 Smart Color Integration: Automatic theme-adaptive color selection
• 📊 Profile System: Different configurations for different rice themes
• 🔧 20+ Modules: Comprehensive system monitoring and controls
• 🚀 Auto-Launch: Seamless startup with window manager integration
• ⚡ Performance: Optimized for low resource usage

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📁 Configuration Files Location

Your Polybar configuration is stored in:

~/.config/polybar
├── launch.sh              # Enhanced launch script with profile support
├── profiles/              # Profile definitions
│   ├── default.sh         # Default profile (2 bars)
│   └── minimal.sh         # Minimal profile (1 bar)
└── configs/               # Configuration files
    └── default/
        ├── config.ini     # Main polybar config
        ├── modules.conf   # Module definitions
        ├── bars.conf      # Bar configurations (centralized)
        └── bars/          # Individual bar configurations

To edit it:

chezmoi edit ~/.config/polybar --source ~/.dotfiles

Apply changes with:

chezmoi apply

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🎯 Profile System

How It Works

1. Rice Configurations specify which polybar profile to use via POLYBAR_PROFILE variable
2. Profiles define which bars to launch and which config file to use
3. Launch script automatically loads the correct profile based on your current rice

Available Profiles

• default - Full setup with top and bottom bars
• minimal - Minimal setup with only top bar

Creating New Profiles

Create a new profile in ~/.config/polybar/profiles/:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#
# My Custom Profile
#

POLYBAR_PROFILE_NAME="custom"
POLYBAR_PROFILE_DESCRIPTION="My custom polybar setup"

# Bars to launch (window manager aware)
POLYBAR_PROFILE_BARS=("polybar-top")

WM=$(wmctrl -m | grep -oE 'Name: .*' | cut -d' ' -f2 | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' 2>/dev/null || echo "unknown")
if [ "${WM}" = "i3" ]; then
    POLYBAR_PROFILE_BARS=("i3-polybar-top")
fi

# Config file to use
POLYBAR_PROFILE_CONFIG_FILE="$HOME/.config/polybar/configs/default/config.ini"

Using Profiles in Rice Configs

In your rice's config.sh file:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Polybar profile to use for this rice
POLYBAR_PROFILE="minimal"  # or "default", "custom", etc.

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🚀 Launch Script Commands

The enhanced launch script provides comprehensive polybar management:

~/.config/polybar/launch.sh [COMMAND]

# Commands:
start       # Start polybar with current rice profile
stop        # Stop all polybar processes
restart     # Restart polybar (most common)
status      # Show current status
help        # Show help

Examples

# Restart polybar (automatically uses current rice profile)
~/.config/polybar/launch.sh restart

# Show current status
~/.config/polybar/launch.sh status

# Force restart
~/.config/polybar/launch.sh restart --force

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🔧 What You Can Customize

• Bars: Define multiple bars for different monitors or purposes
• Modules: Choose what system info to display (CPU, memory, network, etc.)
• Fonts & Colors: Set font family, size, and colors (supports Nerd Fonts!)
• Spacing & Alignment: Adjust padding, margins, and alignment
• Behavior: Define click actions, scroll behavior, or auto-hide logic

🗂️ Main Files

• config.ini: Main config file defining bars and module layout
• modules/: Folder containing reusable and custom module logic
• launch.sh: Enhanced launch script with profile support

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📦 Default Modules Available

Polybar supports a variety of built-in and custom modules. Some examples:

• date – current date/time
• cpu – CPU usage
• memory – RAM usage
• battery – battery status
• network – current IP, Wi-Fi, and signal
• spotify – current playing track
• i3 – workspace info for i3 users
• custom/ – your own shell scripts or output

Check the documentation we have for each module in the sidebar!

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🎨 Visual Styling Tips

• Use pywal to dynamically theme your bar based on wallpaper
• Integrate with icon fonts like Material Design or Nerd Fonts for better visuals
• Adjust background transparency with a compositor like picom

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🧪 Testing Your Setup

Make changes incrementally and restart the polybar:

~/.config/polybar/launch.sh restart

To check status:

~/.config/polybar/launch.sh status

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🚫 Disabling Polybar for a Rice

If you want a rice that doesn't use polybar at all, you can either:

1. Omit the POLYBAR_PROFILE variable - the system will fall back to defaults
2. Set an empty profile - create a profile that launches no bars
3. Use a different status bar - the profile system is flexible

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🆘 Need Help?

• Polybar Wiki
• Dotfiles Discussions

Design your own status bar and make your desktop truly yours. The profile system makes it easy to have different configurations for different themes! 🚀