This is a collection of shell scripts that xsetroot -name with various information that I want in my status bar. It was originally written for use with sara v1.0-v2.0, but will work with dwm or any other program that reads the X root window name. By default, this set of scripts writes volume info (alsa), brightness info (light), network ssid, and battery info.
To start, create ~/.sbar/. Then, symlink the files from this repository to /usr/local/bin/ with the prefix sbar_ added to all but startsbar.sh. Then add startsbar.sh & to ~/.xinitrc before the exec sara line. Make sure you change any directory names, etc. to match your system.
Place battery.rules in /etc/udev/rules.d/. Then, run sudo udevadm control --reload to ensure the rules take effect at the moment, or you could reboot. Per the ArchWiki: "However, the rules are not re-triggered automatically on already existing devices", and last I checked the battery is already existing.
If you are running sara v3.0+, use this repository!
Only time, network status, and battery level are updated every 15 seconds. Volume and battery status are updated when they are updated - push notifications effectively. Less system usage!