colored status text

Description

This patch enables colored text in the status bar. It changes the way colors are defined in config.h, allowing the user to define multiple color combinations for use in their status script.

Configuration

Download the patch and apply it according to the general instructions.

Modify the colors definition in 'config.h' to suit your needs. Make sure to define at least 3 colors as they will be used for 'normal', 'selected', and 'urgent' windows, respectively.

Usage

Add code to your status script to output the raw characters '\x03' to switch to the 'urgent' color, or '\x04' to switch to the 4th defined color, etc. Note that the color indices in the status text are +1 from the definition in 'config.h' (because '\0' is the string terminator). To switch back to the normal text color use '\x01'. To enter the raw character '\x01' in vim, press ctrl+v followed by x, 0, and 1 in that order. '\x01' gives the first character, which appears as a bold "A" on the screen to distinguish it from the regular character A.

Example

The following definition in 'config.h':

#define NUMCOLORS         4
static const char colors[NUMCOLORS][MAXCOLORS][8] = {
	// border   foreground background
	{ "#000033", "#dddddd", "#000033" },  // normal
	{ "#000088", "#ffffff", "#000088" },  // selected
	{ "#ff0000", "#000000", "#ffff00" },  // urgent/warning  (black on yellow)
	{ "#ff0000", "#ffffff", "#ff0000" },  // error (white on red)
	// add more here
};

Coupled with a matching status script produces the following: Example Colored Status Text

A really silly example:

echo -e "normal \x01 selected \x03 warning/urgent \x04 error \x01 back to normal text" | dwm

An example status script snippet to take advantage of the colors:

status=""
if [$batperc -le 10]; then
	# use "warning" color
	status+="\x03 BAT: $batperc"
elif [$batperc -le 5]; then
	# use "error" color
	status+="\x04 BAT: $batperc"
else
	# default is normal color
	status+="BAT: $batperc"
fi

# switch back to normal color for date
status+="\x01| "+$(date)

echo -e $status

Download

Minor update to make Danny's patch apply again.

Authors