Configuring Dwm's Panel Is Easy With Dwmblocks

Dwm has a builtin panel that can be a bit tough to configure. Getting it to display the information that you want is not as simple as it should be. Thankfully, there is a program called dwmblocks that makes this a lot easier!
REFERENCED:
► github.com/torrinfail/dwmblocks - Torrinfail's Dwmblocks
► gitlab.com/dwt1/dwmblocks-dis... - DT's Dwmblocks
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[@gaonkarprajwal]

12:14 You don't actually need to reboot here. Just terminating the 'dwmblocks' process, and relaunching it would suffice.

[@minnerlas1730]

You don't need to reboot, you just need to kill the programs that are trying to set the root's name

[@CallMeCOM]

Me on i3: “great, all I need to do is configure this mass file and I’ll be set!” Me on DWM: “patch this, patch that, configure source code, remove backup file, recompile, reboot, win win win”

[@damianmelvin5401]

instablaster

[@armynyus9123]

I'm happy with xfce4-panel running in dwm. was very easy to get up and running and I had xfce stuff anyway hanging round on my FS (arco). Because the statuscolors patch I got dwm showing up in my top - when the systray patch was also in, did not investigate much but offloaded any panel stuff from dwm into xfce4 panel, which includes systray.

[@oalfodr]

dwm is actually first dynamic wm I kept using. Since I do not like usual workspaces implemented in other wm an de's, I did not like any of other wm's. Tags are something ideal for me. I am also using dwmblocks. I've started with Luke's build but I rewrote it from scratch to go through the process myself and remove unneeded stuff.

[@favor94]

what this tag do on dwm?

[@oalfodr]

@@favor94 It just links an app window with tag. Each display handles tags separately. Window can be tagged to multiple tag but I don't use that yet. You then just switch between tags and the other displays are not affected. Patch pertag makes every tag remembering layout individually and I love that.

[@neotwenty-nineBzH]

Amazing work. Tks a lot.

[@hashkeeper]

Derek Tyler is the masta! this guys got the code, the snappy design.

[@rampus44]

Your mic sounds quite good.

[@ElderManhaniniFouraux]

Make or redo, updating, more videos about dwm and dwmblocks or slstatus, please! Tahks a lot. I learn a lot from your videos, even though I'm not fully fluent in the English language, since I'm Brazilian. But I'm always following your videos. It's just that the dwm videos got out of date I think.

[@calfdindon2353]

xsetroot is bloat, modify updatestatus() in dwm.c instead

[@web3wizard381]

Would you mind if I created a live arch ISO out of your rice and configurations?

[@DistroTube]

You don't have to ask permission to make your own spin of "free" software. So go right ahead. ;)

[@Newtube_Channel]

You should start from the original sources and learn it for yourself. You will only learn it by doing it yourself.

[@kropotkinvore316]

@@Newtube_Channel but... thats the point of creating a pre-riced iso? many people dont want to spend hours patching suckless software and actually want to use the programs

[@Newtube_Channel]

@@kropotkinvore316 Why do they want to use the programs?

[@kropotkinvore316]

@@Newtube_Channel i mostly use dwm for the way it tiles and the low ram usage, the patching is just a plus

[@user-fp7fs9xl2t]

Great Content ...

[@AbduleeFtw]

Larbs switching from i3 to dwm made me try it and i love it

[@hanspetervollhorst1]

Seems counterintuitive to edit the .def.h file. Are you sure you are not supposed to keep the .def.h the way it is and only edit the .h file?

[@Dus3826]

Nope

[@maybeanonymous6846]

Yespe

[@pearandapricots]

editing config.def.h lets you set a default config for dwm. patches add their settings to config.def.h. So you have to remove (or just move) the config.h file for the patches to work. editing the .def.h keeps the settings even if you removed config.h, that is really handy in some cases.

[@Bryan7119]

DWM is dope.

[@0x2fd]

thank you so much

[@masons5230]

when I run the command dwmblock & it will change to the configured dwmblocks but then revert to the old dwm statusbar. Any suggestions?

[@zuzuz18]

How does the update signal field work? How do we know/decide what the correct signal is and how does one set the kill command to kill and then update the correct script?

[@maddancing]

that's all part of the array in blocks.def.h - the last entry is the update signal which you can trigger by calling kill -signal pid - let's say you declared a block with update signal of 3. add 34 to that signal and run the kill command like so: kill -37 $(pidof dwmblocks). I hope this helps someone ❤️

[@chinmayasamantara6863]

You are genius

[@CandyCaneChris]

Anyone else who is confused about which patches to use and what they do. There's an easier way. DWM-Flexipatch is available on github, and includes a simple 0/1 toggle for almost every patch. It's bloated, but makes dwm patching so simple.

[@CandyCaneChris]

An interesting opinion, however one we will have to disagree on. I doubt many people use DWM without at least some basic patching. One of the greatest strengths of FOSS software is we can all customize it to how we personally want to use it. As for quality though, I am not a master of C, but am curious what could be wrong with code that works as intended. I support debloating, but not at the cost of oversimplification.

[@CandyCaneChris]

Understandable. Personally I use Qtile daily as I am much more comfortable in Python and it meets my needs. The scrutiny of patches makes sense. After patching and successfully building dwm as I would like it I realized it was very different than the original and decided to leave it behind rather than track so many different patches. My original comment was only mentioning Flexipatch as a way for people to test what patches actually preform like in use. As finding pictures, video, or even decent text descriptions can be difficult for some patches. Stacker vs Rotatestack comes to mind as an example. I tried both patches individually and found myself happier with Stacker, but others may like Rotatestack. Either way I can't imagine using DWM daily without one of the two patches to make moving windows through the stacks easier.

[@yScribblezHD]

@@Newtube_Channel That's not how you use the word code smell. I have to question whether or not you're familiar with code at all lmao. Also, no one is using dwm for the learning experience, nor was it made to be used as such. dwm was made to be used as a functional piece of software, believe it or not. This is some cringe level of twm elitism.

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

Hay DT.... Well after using Spectrwm for 6 months or so I dragged out the test laptop and cloned you DWM and all the others and I an playing with it. I have it on EndeavourOS Cinnamon because I like the Cinnamon programs. :-) I am now trying to understand how to insert my programs and so on. I have Dmenu launching to the bottom as it is better for my trifocals... Lol I have only hosed it a few times on building but I am getting their. LOL DWMBlocks was easy to figure out... :-D Sorry DT, but I have to change the MOD key back to the ALT key as I don't own a Windows keyboard, old IBM clickers... HaHaHa. That also means I am having to change some of the other bindings too. So I am setting them like I have in Spectrwm which is not that much different, just 3 keys... :-D I have it 90% done for now, so I'm taking a break from it for a few. Hat DT, I do have a question? Can the DWM bar be set to the bottom also? Easier for me to see... I did not see anything on DWM Wiki... Just would like to know... Have not Googled it either... LOL Yet! :-) Thanks for the GitHub and your builds... Thanks for the video too! LLAP

[@DistroTube]

In config.def.h look for this line: static const int topbar = 1; /* 0 means bottom bar */ Then 'rm config.h' if it exists and 'sudo make install'.

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

@@DistroTube Found it! Thank you DT. I was not even looking at the top of the file. I should have known better... :-) Thanks you for the help! LLAP

[@Sadi000Q]

How about showing us a vid of compiling dwmblocks (the one that allows mouse clicks), so that we could learn how to build a system up? If I use your builds of dwmblocks (which I have), I'm only learning what key shortcuts you use and how to remove the scripts that I don't need, but not what it took to get it all together. Dwmblocks with mouse click support is the logical next step after we configure our status bar with what we need.

[@mustaphaabdullah8139]

Interesting

[@himanshushukla787]

I think slstatus is a better solution to this, as the config file has a lot more options in the slstatus config.h

[@pranit90ce]

Hi dt, can you please take a look at nnn file manager please!!!!... thanks! :)

[@georgewashington2216]

Hey DT, can you help me to create block for disk i/o load? I mean disk read/write speed in real time.

[@Newtube_Channel]

It can be done if your program can read the /proc fs. But if that's too tall an order then look at parsing the output from iostat, iotop or dstat using regular expressions. Here's a program that will parse the /proc fs. Look at the blkdev_cb callback as well as the read_kbps, write_kbps functions: github.com/doa379/status/blob/master/status.c

[@georgewashington2216]

@@Newtube_Channel Thanks. I'll try to use data from /proc/diskstats.

[@zyro5890]

slstatus does the same and doesn't need reboot.

[@thetreeofclues]

dwmblocks doesn't need reboot lol, dt just thought it did

[@irionirion7816]

Hi, the package libxft-bgra 2.3.3.r7.7808631e-1 is flagged out of date in the AUR website ! I can't even git clone the repo

[@DistroTube]

This is the one you need: aur.archlinux.org/packages/libxft-bgra-git/

[@jperfection]

7:20 I thought you are using DuckDuckGo :p

[@0x1337feed]

if you can't get good results with ddg you're just bad at navigating the web

[@champfisk5613]

I can never get the icons to be work in dwmblocks

[@DistroTube]

Make sure you are using a font that can display the icons. I use JoyPixels from the Arch repo.

[@champfisk5613]

@@DistroTube thank you, I will give it a try!

[@tokiomutex4148]

@@champfisk5613 Nerd fonts are also useful

[@matthewrossee]

@@champfisk5613 Make sure you have your dwm patched with dwm-pango patch

[@champfisk5613]

@@matthewrossee okay is the patch on the suckless site?

[@calfdindon2353]

I always do "ln -s config.def.h config.h". It solves all my problems with suckless software.

[@overclucker]

That's a good solution. I delete config.def.h.

[@Aemilindore]

Could you share a link to your mic?

[@DistroTube]

It's an ElectroVoice 27 N/D

[@Aemilindore]

@@DistroTube thanks.

[@petesaar7122]

you need the mustache

[@darkarie]

second!

[@darkarie]

😅

[@mrskilz4thrilz]

DistroTube if you are going to do a video to teach new users, please do your research to ensure you teach good practicies in the GNU/Linux+POSIX world. 😀

[@theproftiago]

Man I tried to install your dwm version. But the dwmblocks as a dependency gets an error. It's not installing at all

[@DistroTube]

Try it now. dwm-distrotube-git and dwmblocks-distrotube-git no longer have each other listed as dependencies. I think that might have been your issue.

[@theproftiago]

@@DistroTube thank you very much. I will try tomorrow morning.

[@ohio2440]

BSPWM or DWM, i can't decide.

[@Returnality]

DWM. There, decided for you ;)

[@rizkyadiyanto7922]

i use awesomewm myself. i think theyre basicaly the same.

[@favor94]

i suggest try bspwm first

[@favor94]

@sad girl julia bspwm is more manual tiling for me, agreed that layout its funny when automatic

[@MisraPreetiman]

First !

[@jeremyottley4141]

Don't even think about patching, just use: github.com/bakkeby/dwm-flexipatch

[@HaiNguyen-cf1ji]

Panel just bloat, using tmux and add script to it and voila

[@linux-guy9596]

14 maths

[@ertwro]

The panel is by far the worse part of dwm. Since you redraw the title every time there's new input it consumes a lot more CPU than other panels. So if your software is minimalist but it wastes resources then maybe is not the right tool.

[@yScribblezHD]

@@Newtube_Channel You most certainly don't need an integrated statusbar to maintain state, that's incredibly incorrect. Before using dwmblocks I was simply using xsetroot in a shell script and had maintained state via envars in order to run commands for different segments of the statusbar at different intervals. Heavier or less time critical segments ran less often, therefore their state was tracked and used to re-write their status when the bar was refreshing more info related to frequently ran segments.

[@yScribblezHD]

@@Newtube_Channel "An integrated status bar works in much the same way, just that it maintains its state for efficiency". If this isn't implying that integrated status bars have the advantage of maintaining state, then not only is it poorly worded but you also completely failed to give a sensible response to the initial comment.

[@yScribblezHD]

@@Newtube_Channel aight