i3 blocklets

This repository contains a set of blocklets for i3blocks, all written in Zig (0.15.2).

Blocklets

Blocklet	Description
battery	Shows battery percentage with icon and color. When discharging, displays estimated time remaining (hours and minutes). Color shifts from green to red as battery drains.
brightness	Shows screen brightness as a percentage, reading from the Intel backlight sysfs interface.
capslock	Displays a red "CAPS ON" indicator when Caps Lock is active. Shows nothing when off.
cpu_usage	Shows CPU usage percentage by sampling /proc/stat twice over 500ms. Color shifts from green to red as usage increases.
kernel	Displays the running kernel version string read from /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease.
memory	Shows RAM usage as a percentage of total memory. Color shifts from green to red as usage increases.
temperature	Shows CPU temperature in °C with a thermometer icon that changes based on heat level. Color shifts from green to red as temperature rises.
volume	Shows system audio volume percentage via wpctl. Displays a muted icon and grey color when muted, otherwise shows a speaker icon.

Extra blocks in the config

The config also includes two non-Zig blocks that use shell commands directly:

Block	Command	Description
date	date +" %a, %d %b "	Displays the current day and date.
time	date +" %H:%M"	Displays the current time in 24hr format.

Building

Each blocklet is built individually using its build.sh script. All blocklets follow the same pattern — compiled with zig build-exe at ReleaseFast optimization level:

cd <blocklet>
./build.sh

This produces a standalone binary in the same directory (e.g. battery/battery).

To build all blocklets at once:

for dir in battery brightness capslock cpu_usage kernel memory temperature volume; do
    (cd "$dir" && ./build.sh)
done

Requirement: Zig must be installed and available on your $PATH.

The volume blocklet additionally requires wpctl (part of WirePlumber) to be available at runtime.

The config assumes all binaries live in their respective subdirectories relative to the config file (e.g. ./battery/battery), so i3blocks should be launched from the repo root, or the paths in config adjusted accordingly.

All Zig blocklets output Pango markup for colored text, so every block entry in the config requires markup=pango.