BitBar

BitBar (by Mat Ryer - @matryer) lets you put the output from any script/program in your Mac OS X Menu Bar.

Example showing the latest Buy and Sell figures for BitCoins:

Click to see the full output, and more options:

Example showing your internal and external IP addresses:

Get started

Get the latest version of BitBar for FREE, or pick a different release. Copy it to your Applications folder and run it - it will ask you to (create and) elect a plugins folder, do so.

Homebrew Cask users can, alternatively, install BitBar by running brew cask install bitbar.

Browse our plugins to find useful scripts, or write your own

It's free, so please donate

If you use this, please donate BitCoin to 1DGoNEYAnjE5DqK7y5zMPR4PLU5HLKpLNR.

Installing plugins

Just download the plugin of your choice into your BitBar plugins directory and choose 'Reset' from one of the BitBar menus.

Configure the refresh time

The refresh time is in the filename of the plugin, following this format:

{name}.{time}.{ext}

• name - The name of the file
• time - The refresh rate (see below)
• ext - The file extension

For example:

• date.1m.sh would refresh every minute.

Most plugins will come with a default, but you can change it to anything you like:

• 10s - ten seconds
• 1m - one minute
• 2h - two hours
• 1d - a day

Ensure you have execution rights

Ensure the plugin is executable by running chmod +x plugin.sh.

Resetting Plugin Directory

In case you made the mistake of choosing a directory with thousands of files as the plugin directory and BitBar getting stuck forever, do this from terminal to reset it:

defaults delete com.matryer.BitBar

Writing a plugin

• To write a plugin, just write some form of executable script that outputs to the standard output.
• Multiple lines will be cycled through over and over.
• If your output contians a line consisting only of ---, the lines below it will appear in the dropdown for that plugin, but won't appear in the menu bar itself.
• Your lines might contain | to separate the title from other parameters, such as...
  • href=.. to make the dropdown items clickable
  • color=.. to change their text color. eg. color=red or color=#ff0000
  • font=.. to change their text font. eg. font=UbuntuMono-Bold
  • size=.. to change their text size. eg. size=12
  • bash=.. to make the dropdown items open terminal with your script e.g. bash=/Users/user/BitBar_Plugins/scripts/nginx.restart.sh
  • param1=.. if sh script need params
  • param2=.. if sh script need params
  • param3=.. if sh script need params
  • terminal=.. if need to start bash script without open Terminal may be true or false
• If you're writing scripts, ensure it has a shebang at the top.

Examples

One line plugin

#!/bin/bash
date

Multi-line plugin

#!/bin/bash

# the current date and time
date

# the current username
echo $USER

# the current user id
id -u

Multi-line plugin with extra data

#!/bin/bash
echo "One"
echo "Two"
echo "Three"
echo "---"
echo "Four"
echo "Five"
echo "Six"

• Only One, Two and Three will appear in the top bar
• Clicking the plugin menu item will show all lines

Multi-line plugin with links and colors

#!/bin/bash
curl -m 1 http://example.com -I >/dev/null 2>&1
[ $? -gt 0 ] && echo "FAIL | color=red" || echo "OK | color=green"
echo "---"
echo "Show Graphs | color=#123def href=http://example.com/graph?foo=bar"
echo "Show KPI Report | color=purple href=http://example.com/report"

Multi-line plugin with fonts and colors

#!/bin/zsh
FONT=( 'size=14' 'font=UbuntuMono' )
if ((0)); then echo "DO | $FONT color=orange"
else           echo "DO | $FONT color=cadetblue"
echo "---"
...

Written something good?

Please send us a pull request and we'll add it to our repos.

• Thanks to @mazondo for the BitBar logo