Inter process messaging

Support for inter-process messaging can be enabled by defining the bar parameter enable-ipc = true.

By default the project is built with a helper tool called polybar-msg used to facilitate ipc messaging.

Message types

Hook message for custom/ipc modules

Format: hook:module/<module-name><hook-id>

See the module wiki page for more details on how to setup message hooks.

Action message to simulate mouse action

Format: action:<message>

This could be used to control a menu module, for example:

$ echo action:menu-open-1 >/tmp/polybar_mqueue.<pid>
$ echo action:menu-close >/tmp/polybar_mqueue.<pid>

Command messages to control polybar

Format: cmd:<command>

The following values for <command> are available:

• quit: Terminates the bar this message was sent to
• restart: Restarts the bar
• hide: Hides the bar
• show: Makes the bar visible again, if it was hidden
• toggle: Toggles betweend the hidden and visible state

Sending messages

Messages are written to the processes unique FIFO created at /tmp/polybar_mqueue.<pid> on startup.

If you only have one bar running, you could use the following command to send messages:

$ echo message >/tmp/polybar_mqueue.$(pidof polybar)

To write a message to all running instances.

$ echo message >/tmp/polybar_mqueue.*

For setups with multiple bars I'd recommend creating symlinks to each channel after launching the process to make it easier to send messages to a specific instance.

$ polybar mybar1 &
$ ln -s /tmp/polybar_mqueue.$! /tmp/ipc-mybar1
$ polybar mybar2 &
$ ln -s /tmp/polybar_mqueue.$! /tmp/ipc-mybar2

$ echo message >/tmp/ipc-mybar2

By using xprop you could send a message to a specific bar by clicking on it:

$ echo message >/tmp/polybar_mqueue.$(xprop -f c 32 _NET_WM_PID | cut -d ' ' -f 3)

Using polybar-msg

The executable polybar-msg can be used to simplify passing messages to polybar. Instead of writing a message of the form <type>:<payload> to /tmp/polybar_mqueue.<pid>, you can call

polybar-msg -p <pid> <type> <payload>

If you want to send a message to all running bars, execute the command without a pid:

polybar-msg <type> <payload>

For example you can hide all bars like this:

polybar-msg cmd hide