Actions

3.5.0

Table of Contents

"Actions" are used to trigger certain behavior in modules. For example, when you click on your volume module (pulseaudio or alsa), polybar internally sends an action to that module that tells it to mute/unmute the audio.

These actions are not only used internally, but users can also send these actions to polybar through Inter Process Communication (IPC) to trigger certain behavior in polybar modules.

Action String Format

An action string follows the following format:

#NAME.ACTION[.DATA]

Where NAME is the name of the target module (not the type!) and ACTION is the name of the action in that module. DATA is optional data attached to an action (for example to say which menu level should be opened).

For example the date module supports the toggle action to toggle between the regular and the alternative time and date format. If you have the following date module:

[module/mydate]
type = internal/date
...

The action string for toggling between the date formats would look like this:

#mydate.toggle

Note that we use the name of the module (mydate) and not the type.

As an example for an action string with additional data, take the menu module:

[module/powermenu]
type = custom/menu
menu-0-0 = Poweroff
menu-0-0-exec = poweroff
menu-0-1 = Suspend
menu-0-1-exec = systemctl suspend

The action name to open a certain menu level is open, so to open level 0 (menu-0), the action string additionally has the level attached to it:

#powermenu.open.0

Triggering Actions

Most modules already use action strings to trigger actions when you click on or scroll over a module. But in some cases you may want or need to manually send action strings to polybar to trigger a certain behavior.

Everywhere where you can specify a command to run on click or scroll, you can also specify an action string. For example, in the bar section, you can specify a command that is triggered when you click anywhere on the bar (where there isn't another click action):

[bar/mybar]
...
click-left = #mydate.toggle
...

This will then trigger the toggle action on the mydate module when you click anywhere on the bar.

Similarly, we can use action strings in %{A} formatting tags just as we would regular commands:

%{A1:firefox:}%{A3:#mydate.toggle:}Opens firefox on left-click and toggles the
date on right-click %{A}%{A}

Finally, polybar's Inter Process Communication (IPC) can also be used to trigger actions:

polybar-msg action "#mydate.toggle"

Note

The quotes around the action string are necessary, otherwise your shell may interpret the # as the beginning of the comment and ignore the rest of the line.

Available Actions

The following modules have actions available. Most of them are already used by the module by default for click and scroll events.

All Modules

These actions are available to all modules and are prefixed with module_.

module_show, module_hide: Shows/Hides a module. The module is still running in the background when hidden, it is just not drawn. The starting state can be configured with the hidden configuration option.

3.6.0
module_toggle: Toggles the visibility of a module.

3.6.0

internal/date

toggle: Toggles the date/time format between date/time and date-alt/time-alt

internal/alsa

inc, dec

Increases/Decreases the volume by interval percentage points, where interval is the config setting in the module. Volume changed like this will never go above 100%.

if unmute-on-scroll is turned on, the sound will also be unmuted when this action is called.

toggle

Toggles between muted and unmuted.

internal/pulseaudio

inc, dec

Increases/Decreases the volume by interval percentage points, where interval is the config setting in the module. Volume changed like this will never go above ~153% (if use-ui-max is set to true) or 100% (if not).

if unmute-on-scroll is turned on, the sound will also be unmuted when this action is called.

toggle

Toggles between muted and unmuted.

internal/xbacklight

inc, dec: Increases/Decreases screen brightness 5 percentage points.

internal/backlight

inc, dec: Increases/Decreases screen brightness 5 percentage points.

internal/xkeyboard

switch: Cycles through configured keyboard layouts.

internal/mpd

play: Starts playing the current song.
pause: Pauses the current song.
stop: Stops playing.
prev: Starts playing the previous song.
next: Starts playing the next song.
repeat: Toggles repeat mode.
single: Toggles single mode.
random: Toggles random mode.
consume: Toggles consume mode.
seek: (Has Data) Seeks inside the current song.

The data must be of the form [+-]N, where N is a number between 0 and 100.

If either + or - is used, it will seek forward or backward from the current position by N% (relative to the length of the song). Otherwise it will seek to N% of the current song.

internal/xworkspaces

focus: (Has Data) Switches to the given workspace.

The data is the index of the workspace that should be selected.

next: Switches to the next workspace. The behavior of this action is affected by the pin-workspaces setting.
prev: Switches to the previous workspace. The behavior of this action is affected by the pin-workspaces setting.

internal/bspwm

focus: (Has Data) Switches to the given workspace.

The data has the form N+M, where N is the index of the monitor and M the index of the workspace on that monitor. Both indices are 0-based and correspond to the position the monitor and workspace appear in the output of bspc subscribe report.

next: Switches to the next workspace. The behavior of this action is affected by the pin-workspaces setting.
prev: Switches to the previous workspace. The behavior of this action is affected by the pin-workspaces setting.

internal/i3

focus: (Has Data) Switches to the given workspace.

The data is the name of the workspace defined in the i3 config.

next: Switches to the next workspace. The behavior of this action is affected by the pin-workspaces setting.
prev: Switches to the previous workspace. The behavior of this action is affected by the pin-workspaces setting.

custom/menu

open: (Has Data) Opens the given menu level

The data is a single number specifying which menu level should be opened.

close: Closes the menu
exec: (Has Data) Executes the command at the given menu element.

The data has the form N-M and the action will execute the command in menu-N-M-exec.

custom/ipc

3.6.0

send: (Has Data) Replace the contents of the module with the data passed in this action.
hook: (Has Data) Trigger the given hook.

The data is the 0-based index of the hook to trigger.

next: Switches to the next hook and wrap around when the last hook was displayed.
prev: Switches to the previous hook and wrap around when the first hook was displayed.
reset: Reset the module to its startup state: either empty or according to the initial setting.

Deprecated Action Names

3.5.0

In earlier versions (< 3.5.0) action strings only included information about the module type. This meant in bars that contained multiple different modules of the same type, actions for these modules were sometimes processed by the wrong module with the same type.

Since version 3.5.0, this no longer happens. However, this also means we had to change what actions are recognized by polybar modules.

If you explicitly use any polybar action names in your config or any of your scripts, you are advised to change them, as they may stop working at some point in the future. For now polybar still supports the old action names, will convert them to the appropriate new action name, and will print a warning to help you find old action names in your config.

If you use the menu module, you most likely use old action names to open and close the menu (for example menu-open-1 or menu-close). The i3wm-wsnext, i3wm-wsprev, bspwm-desknext, and bspwm-deskprev actions, to switch workspaces in i3 and bspwm, may also appear in your config.

Migration

Updating your config to use the new action names is quite straightforward.

For each action name, consult the table below to find the new action name. Afterwards build the complete action string as described in action-string-format.

Please see below <menu-example> for an example of migrating a typical menu module.

Module Type	Deprecated Action Name	New Action Name
`internal/date`	`datetoggle`	`toggle`
`internal/alsa`	`volup` -----------------------+ `voldown` -----------------------+ `volmute`	`inc` ---------------+ `dec` ---------------+ `toggle`
`internal/pulseaudio`	`pa_volup` -----------------------+ `pa_voldown` -----------------------+ `pa_volmute`	`inc` ---------------+ `dec` ---------------+ `toggle`
`internal/xbacklight`	`xbacklight+` -----------------------+ `xbacklight-`	`inc` ---------------+ `dec`
`internal/backlight`	`backlight+` -----------------------+ `backlight-`	`inc` ---------------+ `dec`
`internal/xkeyboard`	`xkeyboard/switch`	`switch`
`internal/mpd`	`mpdplay` -----------------------+ `mpdpause` -----------------------+ `mpdstop` -----------------------+ `mpdprev` -----------------------+ `mpdnext` -----------------------+ `mpdrepeat` -----------------------+ `mpdsingle` -----------------------+ `mpdrandom` -----------------------+ `mpdconsume` -----------------------+ `mpdseekN`	`play` ---------------+ `pause` ---------------+ `stop` ---------------+ `prev` ---------------+ `next` ---------------+ `repeat` ---------------+ `single` ---------------+ `random` ---------------+ `consume` ---------------+ `seek.N`
`internal/xworkspaces`	`xworkspaces-focus=N` -----------------------+ `xworkspaces-next` -----------------------+ `xworkspaces-prev`	`focus.N` ---------------+ `next` ---------------+ `prev`
`internal/bspwm`	`bspwm-deskfocusN` -----------------------+ `bspwm-desknext` -----------------------+ `bspwm-deskprev`	`focus.N` ---------------+ `next` ---------------+ `prev`
`internal/i3`	`i3wm-wsfocus-N` -----------------------+ `i3-wsnext` -----------------------+ `i3-wsprev`	`focus.N` ---------------+ `next` ---------------+ `prev`
`custom/menu`	`menu-open-N` -----------------------+ `menu-close`	`open.N` ---------------+ `close`

Note

Some deprecated action names are suffixed with N, this means that that action has some additional data (represented by that N), in the new action names this data will appear in exactly the same way, after a period.

Menu Module Example

The menu module is the only module where we have to explicitly use actions for it to work. Because of this, almost everyone will need to update their menu module to use the new action format.

Below you can see an example of a menu module:

[module/apps]
type = custom/menu

label-open = Apps

menu-0-0 = Browsers
menu-0-0-exec = menu-open-1
menu-0-1 = Multimedia
menu-0-1-exec = menu-open-2

menu-1-0 = Firefox
menu-1-0-exec = firefox
menu-1-1 = Chromium
menu-1-1-exec = chromium

menu-2-0 = Gimp
menu-2-0-exec = gimp
menu-2-1 = Scrot
menu-2-1-exec = scrot

This module uses two actions: menu-open-1 and menu-open-2. These are actions with data, the data specifies which level of the menu should be opened.

Looking at the table, we see that the new action name for menu-open-N is open.N, where .N is the data attached to the action. Putting this together with the name of the module gives us #apps.open.1 and #apps.open.2 as action strings. Since your menu module likely has a different name, your action strings will likely not use apps, but the name of your module.

[module/apps]
type = custom/menu

label-open = Apps

menu-0-0 = Browsers
menu-0-0-exec = #apps.open.1
menu-0-1 = Multimedia
menu-0-1-exec = #apps.open.2

menu-1-0 = Firefox
menu-1-0-exec = firefox
menu-1-1 = Chromium
menu-1-1-exec = chromium

menu-2-0 = Gimp
menu-2-0-exec = gimp
menu-2-1 = Scrot
menu-2-1-exec = scrot

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actions.rst

actions.rst

Actions

Action String Format

Triggering Actions

Available Actions

All Modules

internal/date

internal/alsa

internal/pulseaudio

internal/xbacklight

internal/backlight

internal/xkeyboard

internal/mpd

internal/xworkspaces

internal/bspwm

internal/i3

custom/menu

custom/ipc

Deprecated Action Names

Migration

Menu Module Example

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actions.rst

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actions.rst

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Actions

Action String Format

Triggering Actions

Available Actions

All Modules

internal/date

internal/alsa

internal/pulseaudio

internal/xbacklight

internal/backlight

internal/xkeyboard

internal/mpd

internal/xworkspaces

internal/bspwm

internal/i3

custom/menu

custom/ipc

Deprecated Action Names

Migration

Menu Module Example