Dwmblocks is a modular status bar for DWM written in c. The status bar is made
from text output from commandline programs. Blocks are added and removed by
editing the config.h file.
Most status bars constantly re-run every script every several seconds to update. This is an option here, but a superior choice is giving your module a signal that you can signal to it to update on a relevant event, rather than having it rerun idly.
For example, the audio module has the update signal 10 by default. Thus,
running pkill -RTMIN+10 dwmblocks will update it.
You can also run kill -44 $(pidof dwmblocks) which will have the same effect,
but is faster. Just add 34 to your typical signal number.
My volume module never updates on its own, instead I have this command run along side my volume shortcuts in dwm to only update it when relevant.
Note that all modules must have different signal numbers.
Like i3blocks, this build allows you to build in additional actions into your
scripts in response to click events. See the above linked scripts for examples
of this using the $BLOCK_BUTTON variable.
For this feature to work, you need the appropriate patch in dwm as well. See here.